


Some book burning as a treat

by VentisetteStars



Category: The Magnus Archives (Podcast)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Archival Assistant Jonathan "Jon" Sims | The Archivist, Asexual Jonathan "Jon" Sims | The Archivist, Beholding speedrun, Canon-Typical Violence, Gen, Jon googled what archives are, Jon loses his skeptic tendencies fast, Jonathan "Jon" Sims | The Archivist Has ADHD, Martin will be pining, aro/ace Gerry, aro/ace Sasha, horrifying ordeal known as bureaucracy, i'll add tags as i go, it's gunna be spooky, no beta we die like Gertrude’s assistants, will not really follow timeline stuff
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-11-24
Updated: 2021-01-19
Packaged: 2021-03-09 23:54:22
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 12
Words: 36,473
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27694436
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/VentisetteStars/pseuds/VentisetteStars
Summary: What if Jon met Gerry while he was working in Research? One choice changed the course of events and Jon ends up in the Archives years before Canon while Gertrude is still around.
Relationships: Gerard Keay & Jonathan "Jon" Sims | The Archivist, Gertrude Robinson & Jonathan "Jon" Sims | The Archivist, Martin Blackwood/Jonathan "Jon" Sims | The Archivist
Comments: 120
Kudos: 169





	1. The choice that led to a different outcome

**Author's Note:**

> Soooo got this stuck in my head while working on 'flip to side b for more content' and one new document later, here we are. I have an end goal in mind, but there isnt any planning past that xD 
> 
> It mighta grew from the fact I like Gerry, and the idea of more feral human Jon seemed fun. Not sure how often this one will update, but will probably be often-ish?

Jon had quit smoking, except for the times he didn’t actually quit for real yet. This was one of those times. 

It had been 'a day' in research. Tim had asked if Jon could handle a follow-up on a case about a book, cause in Tim’s words “you always seem to know your way around the library.” 

“It’s because I use the catalog before just blindly searching shelves.”

“Wait. like the _Card Catalog_? You don’t use the computer for your searches? How old were you again?” Tim’s eyes lit up with humor as Jon realized he just fanned some flames. 

“I’m not that old. And yes, I mean no. I- Look I use the computer, I don’t even think the library has the cards-”

“It’s there. You can ask one of the library staff to see it.“ Sasha didn’t even look away from her computer or stopped typing to butt into the conversation. 

“Thank you Sasha. I bet Jon _knew_ that and just didn’t want me to know he knew.”

“I- Just give me the file you need me to take a look at for you. Why do you even need me to do it away?” Jon held out his hand in defeat. 

“Oh, I got some things to take care of outside of work and this one is kinda time-sensitive? Anyway, I don’t do overtime, and you seem to love it. Thanks for taking it.” 

Jon groaned. There it was. Ever since Tim started a few months ago, there was always something off about how Tim would jab at Jon’s working habits. It always seemed like he was trying to scold Jon or something. Like Tim was trying to convince Jon to take care of himself out of spite from Tim's comments like that.

Jon looked into the file after Tim went to do whatever Tim did on the clock, and it was a Leitner, _of course_. Jon’s way of working is to work to disprove anything that landed on his desk, which most were ridiculous so it wasn't hard. But he had a history none of his coworkers knew. This file would also make it back to his superiors with notes tearing it apart, proof for reasons to disprove it. Except Jon would know it couldn’t be written off that easily. 

Even with all the proof in the world indicated it was fake, that name alone was proof enough that the person who submitted this experienced everything. Everything that was recorded in the file was probably true.

So Jon went out for a smoke before heading to the library. If the book ended up being there, well, he just hoped it wasn’t there. In another life, Jon might not have given into the urge to smoke, and never ended up in the alley, but in this one, he opened the back door to see the goth who stood over a fire, looking rather pleased. 

The goth looked over to see Jon in the door and smiled. “Hey, you just gunna keep staring or you want to join in? You can light that on the fire if you’d like. Save some lighter fluid.” He nodded to the cigarette in Jon hand. 

“What- ah- are you trying to light the block on fire?” Jon didn’t quite know how to respond.  
  
“Nope. Just the cursed book that eats people. I don’t care if you stay or go, but close the door. You’ll set off the fire alarms if any smoke gets in.” 

Jon nodded and closed the door behind him as he walked into the alley. Jon probably would have a minor meltdown later at the mentioning of book eating people, but his curiosity helped keep that at bay for the moment. So instead Jon asked. “Was it _from the Library of Jurgen Leitner_?”

“Yeah. Shoulda known anyone that walked out of that building would know of him in one way or another.” The stranger scoffed something under his breath Jon didn’t quite catch.

“I wouldn’t be surprised if others caught on, but it’s not as common as you’d think.” Jon wasn’t about to give his life story to a stranger, but it was also true. Only ones in research that gave off knowing about Leitner’s library was Sasha from her time in Artifacts, and their supervisor who would remind Jon to take his job more seriously regarding the books. “Most probably don’t even notice the name.”

Jon paused before continuing. “Think I’ll pass on lighting this with the fire though. Can’t imagine it being all that safe.”

“Oh it’s not. I do it anyway.” He laughed in a way that didn’t sound like he thought it was funny.

“Mmhmm.” Jon took out his lighter. Maybe he really should quit for good. Stop carrying around spares for the just in case moments. 

“I’m Gerard.”

Jon looked over at him with a look of confusion. 

“My name. Figure since we appear to both be bonding over the fire, you should have something to remember this occasion by.”

“Oh. I’m Jon then. So ah, why this alleyway?” 

“Can’t say it’s much of your business. Not the safest thing to get involved in. The simple of it, is it was closest alley since can’t burn it in the building.”

“Oh.” Jon stared into the fire, almost forgetting about his cigarette entirely. 

And then they both stood in silence until the book was nothing but ashes. 

“Well, that's done. Thanks for the company?” Gerard started to walk away, exiting the alleyway, waved his hand in a somewhat lazy fashion as he passed by Jon. 

Jon nodded and watched Gerard leave, only to see him meet up with Gertrude as she walked by. Jon was too far away to hear what was said, but the two walked off with each other. 

“So he knows Ms.Robinson.” And then Jon’s breath was caught in his throat as his curiosity was sated and the panic of just being around another Leitner sunk in. 

\---

A week passed and Jon was fixated on knowing. He needed to know more about Gerard, and the book that they watched burn together. Jon spent a chunk of that time cursing himself for not asking anything at the time. For letting Gerard just walk away without another word. 

The only things he had gotten from the interaction were a name, another encounter with a terrible book, and that the mystery man and Gertrude knew each other. So he had one lead. And he also happened to have a file on his desk that involved a book.

If he were to be asked if he was making it look like he was struggling with that file so he would have an excuse to travel into the basement, he would stumble out a ‘how did you know?’. Fortunately, that wasn’t something anyone would suspect of him. Tim and the coworker that had a desk next to him, who he couldn’t remember the name of and he swore it changed every time they talked, both teased Jon for his struggles. 

Any other time, Jon would’ve fought it, but he knew what he was doing. He had a plan and needed to look desperate enough to follow a ‘lead’ that would require him to consult the archivist. 

A week felt like a long enough time for that desperation, partially cause Jon couldn’t stand waiting, and partially cause Tim started to offer to take it back. Jon wasn’t going to give this up. 

The basement was bad. Jon walked in and it felt like he could feel the whole institute using him as a shoulder rest. Also, he couldn’t shake the feeling of being watched. It was always kind of there, but once in the archives, it made his normal department feel like nothing. 

Gertrude walked out of her office to greet Jon before he even had a chance to announce himself. For a moment, he could’ve sworn she looked ready to kill before she smiled sweetly at him. 

“Hello there. What can I help you with?” Gertrude’s voice was sweet. 

“Oh, a- I was wondering if I could take a look through some of the archived statements? I think there might be a lead for something I’m researching.”

“Oh of course. It might be hard to find. I’ve had quite the time with the archives. Not as Young as I used to be. Let me see what I can do though. Could you tell me what you are looking for?” She started to make her way to the shelves. Something about the way Jon noticed she moved seemed too controlled. Like someone trying to act being old but clearly not actually frail. 

“I’m looking for some similar references for a book. I’ve been having a hard time locating anything about the book from just the title. I was able to track down the book easily enough, it was just a common book. But it was noted that it was a hardcover, and it’s never been published in hardcover format, and also on the inside there was a plate that read ‘from the library of Jurgen Leitner’. I’ve noticed a trend of books that contained that in the past so I was hoping to find more on it in the archived statements.”

Gertrude let out a contemplative noise. “I can’t say that rings any bells.” Something in Jon’s mind whispered she was lying. “But feel free to take a look.” 

“Thanks. I will.” Jon opened up one of the boxes and was almost horrified at how disorganized it was from just a glance. He loathed to learn what actually looking at the mess would reveal.“Oh also, do you happen to know how to contact someone named Gerard? I bumped into him the other day, and he’d dropped something I wanted to return. He, a- Mentioned he was here to meet with the archivist.” 

Jon wasn’t sure what had compelled him to lie like that or how he even pulled it off so smoothly, nor how he was so confident that there were enough facts in that statement that Gertrude would have to tell him truth in return. There was no way she could pretend to not know Gerard if he had stated he knew her.

Her smile remained but her eyes showed a sharpness as she seemed to be taking a closer look at Jon than she had so far. It made Jon’s skin crawl. 

“I do. He was here to leave a statement. If you would like to leave it here, I could contact him and let him know it’s in the archives.” 

“I wouldn’t want to trouble you with it. You seem to have a lot on your plate-”

“Well if that isn’t a winning statement of the year.” Elias chimed in from behind the two of them. Jon hadn’t even heard him coming in. 

“Elias. What do I owe the honor?” Jon noticed Gertrude’s sweet tone was missing.

“I had a question about something for you Gertrude. But noticed you were having a conversation with Mr.Sims here.”

Jon nodded to Elias to greet him. He never had an easy time talking to the man. 

“Seemed like the proper time to announce myself. It really does seem like the Archives have been far too much for you to handle if even others are noticing.”

“Don’t insult me. I’m getting along just fine.” 

“Hmm. You know, I’ve been thinking you could use some help. Maybe even just from time to time. Not an all the time thing since you’re so averse to it.” 

Jon stared, not quite understanding the vibes being exchanged in the room. 

“Oh, but we can discuss this more later when you have time. I’ll let you and Mr.Sims continue as you were.”

“I’m sure he will be fine for now if you would like to move to my office. I’ll contact Gerard and let him know he dropped, what did you say he left?” She looked to Jon for an answer. 

“Oh, I didn’t say, but a Book.” Wasn’t a lie. Gerard did leave behind a book.

She squinted at Jon while making another noise of interest. “I’ll let him know. Feel free to take a look at whatever you find, but please keep in mind the records don’t leave. Try to put them back where you found them. Or you can leave them out and I’ll take care of them. Shall we Elias?” Gertrude made her way to the office without waiting for Elias to respond. 

Elias nodded to Jon before following her, leaving Jon alone with stacks of horror stories and a feeling of curiosity at all the layers of things he didn’t know.


	2. meeting with no subject line

Once Jon had returned from the archives, it was very clear that not only did he not find what he was looking for, but something else seemed to have pokes him wrong.

Jon was frustrated and unfortunately, that meant it was everyone in research’s problem. It wasn’t an intentional thing on his part, but his responses were far shorter with more sharp angles than normal. Most of them were used to it to some extent, all but Tim knew what to expect from Jon. Tim however, seemed to take the extra edges as a new challenge to cheer Jon up by force, or at least a new way to pass time. Most of Tim’s verbal pokes and jabs were returned with annoyed groans or a coworker warning Tim to cut it out. 

When Friday came along, Tim tossed another tease towards Jon. “If you weren’t so into overtime, I would invite you to hang out tonight-”

“Fine.” Jon didn’t look up from what he was focused on. “Where are we going?”

“Wait, Really?” Tim shock wasn’t feigned much as it might’ve sounded that way. 

“Don’t be so shocked. You invited me. What did you have in mind.”

“Well, I honestly didn’t think you would take me up on it, so I didn’t actually have anything in mind.”

“Never mind then.” Jon sounded not hurt, but something similar? Tim couldn’t actually read him for once. 

“No no, I’m still free and completely game for it, just didn’t think past the you responding with yes. You’ve never done that before.”

“Hmm, I’ve been busy anytime you asked. Short notice sucks.” 

“I’ll keep that in mind.” Tim grinned. “So, since we are planning to hang out, wanna hit a club or grab dinner and see where that goes?” 

“I’m...Clubs aren’t really my thing, but I’m not averse to pubs. Getting food sounds nice. I have to warn you, I’m not...I don’t normally just ‘hang out’ in that I’m not sure what that would entail with a coworker....” 

“Well, would it help if there were more people?” Tim looked around the room to see who all looked free. Sasha was just about the only one not buried in work. The dude next to Jon also seemed to be scrolling facebook but Tim couldn’t remember his name, and something about the dude seemed to press on nerves Tim liked hide from his coworkers.

“I suppose…”

“Cool, Hey Sasha!” 

\---

Jon woke up Saturday on a couch he didn’t remember and in his confusion, less than gracefully face planted onto the floor, tangled in a mess of blankets. Laying there regretting every choice he had made since yesterday afternoon, Jon started to recall what had happened last night as the grogginess of sleep left him. He was at least content that there wasn’t alcohol involved, just his own normal flavors of tormented dreams.

Tim, Sasha, and himself had gone for dinner, then at the mention of a movie Jon hadn’t watched, Sasha insisted rather than pub, that it was a movie night. Jon was thankful for that as he could socially drink, but it was never a great time for him. 

One movie lead to another, then a third, and Jon didn’t remember how that third one ended. Must’ve been when he conked out. 

As he untangled himself, a cat approached him cautiously as to watch and see what he was going to do next. She was such a good cat. Jon remembered fondly how she spent most of the second movie on his lap. He reached out to her and made the clicking noise to summon cats.

“She slept with you most the night.” Sasha walked into the living room. “Heard a thump and wanted to check on you.”

“I’m so sorry for falling asleep-”

“Hey, no worries. We pushed you for the 3rd movie anyway. Least you passed out here and not on the tube.” 

“Small miracles I guess.” Jon sat up from the floor. He probably looked like a mess. 

“You hungry? I was about to make some food myself.” 

“I wouldn’t want to overstay.”

“Relax. You know how to do that right? I wouldn’t offer if it was a bother.” 

“At least let me help?” Jon folded the blanket and neatly put it on the couch. 

“Sure. Can’t argue that point.”

“Did Tim also?” Jon followed her into the kitchen. 

“No, he left after the movie ended. He was going to wake you up, but I told him not to bother. If you were up for it, want to finish while we eat? So you know how it ends.” 

Jon would’ve probably ended up looking it up later cause much as he wasn’t invested in the movie, not knowing the end would bother him. 

“Sure. Sounds like plan.”

“Oh, also I put your phone on a charger.” She pointed over to the counter. 

“Thanks...Oh christ.” Jon looked at his phone with dread. 

“Everything okay?”

“Maybe? Elias scheduled a meeting for Monday morning. What kind of monster schedules meetings right before the weekend after one of the attendees already clocked out?”

“Our boss kinda monster. I have a theory he likes people marinated in anxiety for meetings with him. I’ve never had a meeting with him where he didn’t make it seem ominous beforehand. He say what about?”

“No. Just the time. Subject is even blank.”

“Oof. Least better than my last meeting with him about a year ago. Subject was ‘about your last repost’ I was certain I messed something up and was going to get fired. It was fine, he was actually impressed and was why I ended up spending some time in Artifact Storage a month later.” 

They both cringed at that. Jon remembered that didn’t go well, and Sasha was back in no time. She didn’t bring it up much either. 

“Well, I did have a run-in with him while I was in the archives the other day.” 

“Pfft would be hilarious if he wanted to gossip about the archives. He loves his gossip.”

“Ah yes. Gossip and I are best friends. I Know so much Gossip.” Jon put on a voice that was very obviously exaggerated, 

Sasha started to laugh while cooking. “Our Jon. Gossip King. Most talkative in research.” 

They both chuckled until falling into a comfortable silence until moving into the living room to finish up the movie with food. Sasha ended up not letting Jon help cook anything. 

\---

Rosie had let Jon into Elias’ office for the meeting Monday morning. Elias wasn’t in yet, but Rosie said he’d contacted her moments ago and wanted Jon to be comfortable while waiting. Jon was anything but that. The 10 minutes felt like years before Elias came into the room. 

“Hello, terribly sorry for the delay.” Elias went to hang his coat up as Jon didn’t know if he should stand to shake his hand, or to remain sitting. What was protical even in this case? Before Jon could come to a decision, Elias was already almost at his seat on the other side of the desk.

“N-no worries.I wasn’t waiting long.” 

“Good to hear. I noticed on my way over, I had forgotten the subject for the meeting this morning. I hope it wasn't trouble. Feel like I need to point out you aren’t in trouble or anything.”

“No trouble at all.” Jon lied. It was. He’d stressed about it all weekend but he wasn’t going to tell that to the head of the institute. “I’ll admit I was a little curious.” Jon hoped his smile was pleasant. 

“Well then, let's take care of that. You remember me mentioning getting someone to assist Gertrude in the Archives, yes?”

Jon nodded.

“Good. I would like to know if that would be something you would be interested in. Now, it wouldn’t be full-time, but the raise that would come with will apply to any time you put into your normal researching position as well. It would mostly entail some organizing, and assisting Gertrude with various tasks. And when she is out of office for extended time, you would resume your work as normal until she returned. You won't be expected to do any work if Gertrude herself was out. What do you say?”

That seemed like a lot for Jon to take in, but he didn’t hear any cons. None that were obvious. “That sounds- Yes, yeah, that would be something that interests me. Um, what sort of details are there?” 

Elias smiled. “Mostly just paperwork to get you squared away in the system for the Archives access, along with any permissions needed so you would have access to all the sections in the library and artifact storage. I’ll set you up to get a tour of each so you know how it works once all the paperwork processes through the right hands. I may be the head, but those in artifact storage tend to be cross with me if I just let people wander in. The rest I’ll let Gertrude walk you through. Also keep in mind, while you are her assistant, I’m your boss, not her, so if she gives you any trouble, please let me know.” Elias opened a drawer to his side and started shifting around. 

“Now let get that paperwork started? Don’t want to keep you too long from research.” 

Jon just nodded as Elias started to walk him through forms. Some were non-disclosure forms, there was a liability waver, -which Elias assured was simply an insurance thing on his end and that only covered the weirdest things like animal attacks or injuries from falls over 4 stories in drop, surely nothing Jon would run into in the archives- and a few things about payroll. Basic bureaucracy things. 

“Lovely. Think that should be all of the needed forms. For now, head onto your normal desk. I’ve already sent an email to your supervisor so they are in the loop. It will be a pleasure to work with you more directly, Jon, you don’t mind if I call you that do you?” Elias offered out a hand as he spoke. 

“No, Jon is fine. I don’t mind at all Mr.Bouchard.”

“Please, call me Elias. I’m your direct boss now after all. Looking forward to working with you.”

Jon felt a small something rush through his veins when he took Elias’ hand. It wasn’t excitement, but it also wasn’t not excitement? Jon couldn’t help but wonder if this was a mistake, but not like it was too late. If things didn’t go well, he could always transfer out like Sasha had with artifact storage. Though he also didn’t want to let his boss down. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Jon: don't want to let boss down  
> Elias: lol sure //nervous jon might be aligning with the web after seeing Jon lie to gertrude's face so rushed in with eye paperwork
> 
> also elias and gertrude don't know about the whole rituals will fail thing yet since this is based around 2013-2014, buuut he just doesn't want spiders on payroll atm. 
> 
> no one knows elias how evil he truly is except gertrude. while everyone knows he is kinda evil in the way bosses can be. I can see him creating setting up every meeting in a way that would maximize stress for the other party. 
> 
> I've no idea how transfers work in england, so sorry for all the vagueness. based on my own work experience in the states.


	3. hooked on a hunch

Gertrude was pacing her office as Elias sat calmly in the extra chair.

“I’ve told you time and time again, No assistants. I have a system and I can’t have other hands meddling around in it.” 

“I understand. But I’m your boss, and I manage the hiring. Jon is a bright man. I’m sure he will pick up your system if you explain it to him properly.”

“Right. What if I just dismiss him each day. You can’t stop me from that.” She bitterly glanced to the frustration in the form of a man that sat in her office. 

“You could. He’s signed a contract to work down with you already. By all means, keep him from entering. I’m sure he will be fine in the long run.”

They both knew the other was aware of what being away from the archives would mean to those employed to work there. 

“Well, I’ll be on my way. Jon should be down in about 8 minutes. He is running a bit early it appears. It’s up to you now what you do and don’t teach him about this department. Or if you let him in at all.” Elias got up with a grin and left.

Gertrude let out a bitter sigh. She had to do some quick thinking.

\---

Jon did not feel welcomed when he entered the archives. 

It didn’t seem to be anything he could put his finger on, but something seemed off. 

Gertrude welcomed him and set him up with a desk, though she insisted that he probably wouldn’t need it he was welcome to use all 4 desks in the room. Only warned him to not open the one locked drawer in one of them. Something about the last assistant might return to collect was in there, and she didn’t want to create hostilities whatever that meant?

She continued to show him around, and walk him through her system when Jon started to mentally drift off. It was such a mess there had to be a better approach to it all. The chaos was so bad he couldn’t imagine how the system she was explaining had to lead this mess.

“Jonathan, are you still with me Dear, or am I doing too fast?”

“Oh, Sorry, Ms. Robinson. I-”

“Just call me Gertrude. No need to be so formal down here.” 

Jon nodded. “Alright. Sorry, I’ve been paying attention. I was doing some observing. Wouldn’t it be easier to section out an area to implement the newly sorted files, rather than by putting sorted sections back with the ones still out of order?”

“Possibly. We can revisit that idea later, but at the moment, sticking with what is here is probably best. Once we’ve gotten it sorted out into at least general years, give or take a decade, we can start worrying about actually sorting it. How I’ve been approaching it for the last several years.”

Jon could feel his stomach drop at that. This was several years of work to get it to this state? He had worked here to research, not to just sort. But he could feel it in his gut Gertrude knew something, or at least whatever connection she had to Gerard was hopefully worth this. Jon was happy he wasn’t here full time. 

Gertrude continued to show Jon around for a little while until sending him back to research around lunchtime, stating she wanted to head home early. Something about all the excitement of a new assistant tuckered her out? Jon could sympathize, for as unprofessional as it was, Gertrude was quite old. 

\--

“She was sweet? That doesn’t sound like the Gertrude I interacted with while in Artifacts.”

“I mean, sure she seems to have a tiny bit of edge to her, but not like in a sharp way? She reminds me of one of my old teachers from uni, so maybe I’m associating the two a little? What? It’s not that I don’t believe you Sasha, I just don’t see it?”

Sasha was clearly giving Jon a look that screamed bullshit. 

“Maybe it was an act, like she wants you to think she is a weak old lady?” Tim added in taking Sasha’s side, even though he just barely knew what Gertrude looked like. “Or maybe she sees another small frail human and pulled kinship with you.” 

“I’m- You know it is actually odd how tall the shelves are and how short she is.”

“I don’t think they built the archives with short workers in mind?” Sasha shrugged. 

“No- No not like that. The shelves are stuffed. Even the top shelves. How was she getting them up there?” 

“Granny is secretly ripped under those cardigans.“ Tim laughed. “Maybe she could tell you were similar, Sash, so her hostility shimmered in competition.”

Sasha laughed and Jon chuckled. 

“Hard to picture her ripped when just giving me a tour was enough to tire her out.” 

“Unless she was faking it.” Tim hummed in humor while he pointed that out. 

“Now I can see her doing that.” 

\---

Jon leaving the archives around lunch became a common occurrence that the part-time shifted from every other day, to Jon working in the archives in the morning and returning to research after lunch. Over the month of that happening, Jon noticed a few things.

1\. Gertrude was either ripped like Tim joked about, or there was someone else coming into the archives when he wasn’t there. Heavy boxes Jon didn’t move would appear and disappear between trips. Weird as it was to do this, Jon started to track it in a notebook cause he was certain he wasn’t seeing things.

2\. Gertrude wasn’t nice to everyone. When statement givers would come down, she would send them to Jon to take care of after showing him how to take one person’s statement. She was always very cold when handing them off, almost as though being in their presence made her physically ill, and once they were in Jon’s hands, she would close herself in her office till they were gone. 

3\. He never actually saw Gertrude leave or enter the building. He first noticed it when she said she was feeling tired and for him to head out, he’d made it to the doors to leave, and realized he forgot his wallet. When Jon returned to the Archives, Gertrude was already gone. She hadn’t passed him when he left or returned, and there was no way with the floor layout for them to miss each other if they left at the same time. He thought it was odd at first, but the second time he stuck around outside the door and she was gone without a trace. 

4\. She definitely knew more than she was letting on. More about all the creepy stories and of the supernatural goings on in the world. When Jon had gotten his access card for the Artifact storage, his tour had been rather full of informed information, considering most of what in there seemed pointless to Jon. He notices though that things that were pointed out to be collected by the archival team tended to feel more real than other stuff. Everyone in the department also shared Sasha’s sentiment of Gertrude being nice was a surprise.

Jon didn’t know what it meant, and he couldn’t figure out why it bothered him. Something just felt wrong, and he needed to _know_. 

By the end of the month, Jon came up with a plan. It was a terrible plan, but one none the less. He was going to try to get her to react, using the only thing he could think of. She’d mentioned she didn’t know about Leitner specifically, but that didn’t mean she didn’t know about cursed books. So Jon was going to try using that information. 

Jon was shuffling some files around while Gertrude seemed to be looking around for something when Jon tried. 

“Oh, Say Gertrude, did you happen to hear back from Gerard about the book he left behind?”

She looked up at Jon with an almost calculated look. “I’m afraid not. It must not have been important to him.”

“Ah. I guess not. Not to sound weird, but lately, it’s been giving me the creeps.” Smooth Jon. He mentally scolded himself. “So thought if I might end up dropping it off at a donation center or something.”

“We have a library here. Could send it over to Artifact storage as well if it worries you.”

“Ah, well those are options. Just a shame I guess. That he never got back to you.“

“Indeed. I could try again and leave the title for him. **What was the book called**?”

“It doesn’t have a title that I know of. There was nothing on the cover.” Not a lie, the cover was already pretty burned when Jon saw it. “I didn’t open it up to look inside for one either. I’ve had first-hand experience with those kinds of books and Leitners aren’t safe to open without precautions.” 

“ **How did you know it was a Leitner if you never opened it**?”

“Gerard told me it was.” Jon felt really weird, like he was no longer in control of his words. He hadn’t planned to point out that he knew it was a Leitner, nor that he had interacted with one in the past. He’s told literally no one about what happened with Mr.Spider.

Gertrude scared Jon. He couldn’t figure out what it was, but in that moment he wanted to leave, to run, to be anywhere but there. Then it was gone, leaving only the uneasy memory of it. 

“I see. Maybe he left it since it was dangerous. You should bring it in on Monday.”

“But, I thought you didn’t recognize Leitner.” Jon hadn’t meant to say it out loud, but Gertrude had unsettled him, and he was more prone to mistakes when he was nervous. He didn’t regret it from the outcome. He got the reaction he wanted from bringing up Gerard. Got her to admit she had been withholding information from him since their first meeting. 

They remained in silence for a moment, almost as though they were in a stand off and the first to talk would concede to whatever this was. 

Elias walked in before either broke the silence. “I hope I’m not interrupting anything.”

“Not at all.” Gertrude squinted at Jon just slightly before looking to Elias. “What can I do for you?”

“It’s about our meeting set for later, there was a conflict so I was hoping we could have it early. It can wait if now is a bad time?”

“Not at all. Jonathan, feel free to head to research early today. We are done here for now.” She and Elias went into her office. Jon had never heard a door shut gently with the same pressure that would make slamming a door feel weak. 

Jon let out a breath he didn’t know he was holding. He grabbed his things and sent a text to his supervisor in research requesting the rest of the day off for due to a headache. She promptly responded with a ‘no problem and feel better. See you Monday.’ message and Jon was out of the building. 

  
What the heck had that even been?

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Gertrude: what the hell did you let in my archives Elias?  
> Elias: I know, isn’t he wonderful! 
> 
> Meanwhile, the Eye is probably buzzing around Jon.
> 
> \--
> 
> Jon's noseyness knows no bounds. Tim and Sasha wont be getting this tale of the staring contest, but you can bet he's been keeping them updated on the weird things happening down there. Sasha is on team "I told you she isn't sweet" with Tim on the "Don't you think it's weird you are paying so much attention to her, but don't stop telling me your theories" team.


	4. Call me Gerry

To say Jon’s weekend was eventful would be the understatement of the year while also somehow an overstatement at the same time. 

Friday he practically passed out on his couch the moment he got there after leaving the archives. He woke up around 6pm with a throbbing headache. Jon was certain it was a stress headache like what he would get back in uni after cram studying for a test. 

What had triggered it, he couldn’t really say since he normally never woke up with them, but maybe he had been trying so hard to know what the heck had happened, he hurt himself in the process. 

He let out a sharp breath through the pain and pulled out his notes he’d been keeping. He jotted down a 5th point on Gertrude's oddness and wrote in ‘I answered her questions?’

It was the a weird point, but he knew that was the way to word it. It wasn’t like he was being forced or threatened. It was just that. She asked and the most obvious response was to give her the answer to the question. He was also certain had she asked what was the name of the Leitner Jon knew of, Jon would have told her everything about Mr.Spider. 

He didn’t really even think to question that fact, cause it was that, a fact. 

Jon tossed his notebook to the coffee table. “What does that even mean? How can someone just ask and get that sort off...What the heck mess have I even gotten into…?”

Jon was tempted to text Sasha and Tim. He didn’t. While he could write off the weird points 1 through 4 as someone is sneaking around the institute behind someone's back, or there is a secret back door only Gertrude knew about, the asking thing.

Jon started to think back on all the other conversations. Had she ever actually asked him anything before those last two questions? Yes. She had asked him many things in his time working with her. There was something about those two. 

Jon was focused on his need to Know. Theories flooding through one by one. Nothing felt right. The only one that seemed to feel close was cause it had to deal with the books that he knew were real. He might be overthinking it, but he might’ve has a similar, but much less intense feeling when he first asked her about Gerard last month. That one couldn’t be credited much though considering he could be looking to leads where there wasn’t one to be found. Memory can be like that. 

Staring at the ceiling Jon started thinking of how to figure out proof. Memory couldn’t be trusted after the fact, but he was going to be recording from now on. Tracking it till he knew was that was. 

There was a strange buzz behind Jon’s eyes in response to that plan. His headache felt like it was getting worse so he went to the kitchen for some pain killers and went to sleep it off in his bed.

\--

“Gerard, he said he had a book you left. I Asked him. And he confirmed he had the book.” Gerard had regretted not letting voicemail take the call. It wasn’t that he didn’t enjoy her. Gertrude was well Gertrude.

“I don’t know what to tell you. I burned the only Leitner I had on me. Sure we talked, but I can guarantee any Leitner he’s got his hands on, he didn’t get it from me.”

She sounded like she cursed on the other end of the line. 

“Look, since he is determined to not bring it to you, I’ll go get it. Just get me his address. I’ll ask him for it, and then burn it. Problem solved.“ Not like Gerard had any real plans for the weekend. Adding another Leitner to his ‘i burned that’ list seemed like a good way to spend it. 

\----

Jon woke up right before there was a knock on his door. He was too groggy to think anything of it until he opened the door to see Gerard standing there. 

“Morning sleeping beauty. Heard you looking to return something to me?” 

Jon still wasn’t awake enough for this, but this would have to do. “I ah yeah um, no ha, I was going to make coffee, I’m- Would you like some?” _Nailed it there Jon_. He internally cursed. 

“Don’t see why not. Get the feeling you aren’t going to be much of a functioning person otherwise.” Gerard followed Jon in and took his boots off at the door. 

“So I dropped a book you wanted to return to me? One that had no title but you knew was a Leitner without opening it? How’d you manage that.”

Jon looked at his coffee maker like it was both his hero and villain. 

“Ah, yeah, about that. You didn’t drop anything...I ah, I wanted answers, and you seemed to be at least informed enough to burn cursed books…”

Gerard joined Jon in the kitchen and looked utterly baffled. 

“How’d you manage to pull a lie off directly to Gertrude’s face?”

“I- a- I wasn’t lying. You did leave a book that you told me was from Leitner’s library. And I there wasn’t a title for me to see? It just wasn’t as book shaped as I let Gertrude think?”

Gerard let out a short ha that was somewhere between a laugh and huff before saying “Gerry.” 

“Huh?”

“Call me Gerry. It’s what my friends call me.”

“So we are friends?” Jon wished he could make his coffee brew faster. His brain was not grasping this conversation well. 

“Yeah. You pulled off something impressive, and who am I to not be impressed by that. So you had questions? I might not have answers you are looking for but figure anything you could ask in this state would be entertaining.”

“Indeed. I’m so much fun right now I’m sure.” Jon’s sarcasm was said through a smile. 

“Well?”

“What did you mean that I could lie to Gertrude’s face? I’m not skilled at it, sure, but she isn’t so sweet that it would stop me.”

“That one is complicated, how much time you got?”

“Ah- um all morning, and evening? I don’t really have any plans for the weekend.” 

“Cool. Lets see how much damage control I can do for your poor mind. Let’s start with this. How much do you know about the Fears and Leitners?” 

\---

Three coffees later Jon was still ready to head back to sleep. Jon had shared what all he pieced together from the few years of working in Research, sharing any hunches or common features he’d noticed. Gerry corrected Jon when he was off then proceeded to share the very basic layers of the 14 Entities, how they were like colors, and how Leitner’s fit into it. It didn’t seem real, but what had happened with Gertrude, and with Mr.Spider.

“Yeah, it’s a lot. How you feeling with those answers?” Gerry was using Jon’s kitchen to cook some lunch for the both of them. Jon didn’t look like he would be able to manage much of anything. 

“I’m, not good. But not bad? Almost disappointed in a weird way?”

“Disappointed? Like I spoiled the major plot point of a podcast or mystery novel?”

“Yeah…” Jon had a dazed look to him. “Like this should’ve been something I struggled with to learn, to make my own connections. Or something I should try to deny, like you are just trying to freak me out as some sort of weird elaborate plan with Elias and Gertrude…” 

Gerry laughed. “Neither of them are that fun. Trust me.”

“That's the thing. Some reason I do. Trust you I mean. Like I’ve noticed some of these from the statements I’ve been researching at work, and from what I’ve been reading in the Archives.”

“Like something you just Know?”

Something about the way Gerry said that. “Yeah…”

“Oof you got it bad.”

Jon looked confused, maybe slightly defensive. “Got what?”

“Though might be better to word it as it’s got you bad. You’re curious, and you are directly looking into the Eye of the Institute. I’m guessing you spent the better part of the last month exclusively looking into Gertrude, The Archivist. One of the major players in the Beholding’s books. Feeding the Eye in its place of power by focusing on learning it, it was bound to sink its teeth into you.”

Jon’s distress was very obvious the more Gerry talked. “Is that- No that is bad, isn’t it. Oh christ I’ve-”

“Hey hey, no worries. You’re probably fine. It’s not like it’s gunna kill you or like I dunno, make you evil or anything. It’s really just, hmm, more like a teacher giving you a sticker?”

“What an undermining example.”

“Well, it's what you get, but you get what I mean? At worst some answers might just feel more right. Like your gut instinct got a level up or something.”

“th-That's good I guess…” Jon looked at the weird sandwich Gerry had put together by frying up several things in his fridge and slapping it between toasted bread. “Also thanks.”

“No problem. I make edible food.” Gerry took a bite of his sandwich, which was similar save for some ingredients being different from Jon’s. 

“The confidence you say that with concerns me.” 

“Dig in. Food will be good to counter the coffee. Gotta admit, you have gotta be pretty brave, so my food shouldn’t be frightening.” 

“Where are you pulling that information from? We just meet and you’ve told me about the horrors of the world. If you say its cause I haven’t fainted form shock-”

“Nah, it’s cause of how you interact with Gertrude. That you can stare her down is extremely impressive. Specially now I know you lied to her face. Just wow, I’m very impressed.” Gerry made a face when he took bite into his sandwich before continuing with another bite. “I don’t suggest trying to pull that off with Elias though. That will not go well for you.”

“Because he is so high up on the Beholdings food chain?”

“Bingo.” 

\--

After eating, Jon continued to talk Gerry’s ear off with questions, while sometimes just going into random topics of applications and manifestations of the fears. Gerry sort of worried that Jon was enjoying this more than he should until topics shifted to some weird science thing he’d learned while researching some file about a dude who seemed to have access to infinite meat? The science was apparently about labs working at growing meat for chicken nuggets or something, so he had sent the file off with the note stating they probably saw it mentioned on a facebook post or something. 

From there Jon and Gerry continued to talk about the food industry for a while. Gerry was enjoying it, not often his life wasn’t just arguing on the internet and hunting books. 

The topics shifted a few more times to just something Jon or Gerry had read about in passing, small life stories about random interactions, sometimes the Fears would come back up, but the focus on them never seemed to stay as long. 

Time flew by like that until Gerry found himself full of pizza they ended up ordering and curled on the couch with a blanket while the two of them watched some random movie Jon’s coworkers forced him to watch a while back. Jon had given Gerry the okay to stay the night if he wanted to before they started the movie cause not even 20 minutes in, Jon was out cold. 

“Poor trusting fool. He is gunna get eaten up.” Gerry got up and looked for a blanket to cover Jon with before giving up and just carried Jon to his bed. 

After tucking Jon in, Gerry returned to the living room, curious what Jon would do when waking in his bed. He smirked as sleep ended up claiming himself as well. 

\---

It was Sunday when Jon woke up. He was in his bed, in yesterday's clothes, and very much not were he remembered falling asleep. He wondered passively if maybe meeting Gerry was an elaborate dream until he could smell food cooking. 

Gerry was still here at, Jon looked to his phone for the time, it was 10 am. Jon fell back into his bed. He hated sleeping in this late, getting to work tomorrow would be a pain. “How am I going to even work tomorrow after yesterday…?”

Jon covered his eyes. That headache from Friday was coming back. He needed to get some pain meds in him before it got bad again. 

Venturing back into his kitchen, Gerry greeted Jon with a grin. “Sleep well? Hope I didn’t hurt ya while moving you. You were sleeping where I claimed. Hope you like eggs and bacon. Didn’t think you were a vegetarian after poking in your fridge a bit. Could be wrong now since you know about the meat fear.” 

“Nope, I’m still carnivorous. Can’t say that will be the case if I ever see the meat fear in person, but for now, the idea of it holds no power over me.”

“Good good. Glad to see sleep didn’t kill your humor as knowledge settled in.”

Jon chuckled and grabbed pain killers. “Nope. Just as hilarious as always. Think the only thing that is a side effect is this monster headache.”

“You did slam the coffee.”

“Yes. yes I did. I might do a repeat performance too.”

“I will not call for an encore. Now eat some protein. I’ve carried books heavier than you.“

“I’m sure you have.” Jon paused. “Also thanks for that. That, and well, all of yesterday really. I’ve no idea how I’m going to work, but also quitting doesn’t seem to be something on my mind.”

“Yeah. The place has that effect on people. Glad I never actually applied, tho I tend to help out from time to time with Gertrude’s endeavors. Don’t envy you having to explain things tomorrow. Heads up, I did let her know you were talking about the book I burned and not a fresh one. ”

“Oh- No worries. In hindsight, I suppose saying you misplaced a Leitner was kind of rude so we are even if anything.”

Gerry nodded stuffing his face. “Well, Thanks for everything. I left my number on your fridge if you need me. Or want to hang out? Got a rent paying job to do in about an hour.” 

“Oh geez, don’t let me keep you.”

“You didn’t. Good luck with tomorrow.” Gerry put his plate in the sink and started to head for the door. 

“Thanks. Any pointers? I’ve only seen sweet old lady Gertrude.”

“Ah yeah. Hmm, I guess don’t say anything to her you wouldn’t say to a lion?”

“Wow, thanks. That's so helpful.”

“It’s what I do.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Gertrude: did you get the book?  
> Gerry: No book to burn. He played you good.   
> Gertrude: Not another spider...  
> Gerry: nope. Eye likes him. 
> 
> \---
> 
> Many scene skips ><) there was a lot of information and figured Gerry would explain it same way as in canon more or less, but with a tiny bit more details on each Fear since Jon would ask. 
> 
> also personal head canon of mine, Jon is a great cook when he has motivation, while Gerry is an experimental cook and its a 50/50 shot it will be a pleasing taste, but he rarely makes anything that is inedible. Not really important for fic, I just like sharing.


	5. Poking a lion

When Jon got to work Monday, Elias happened to be walking up at the same time. 

“Morning. Fancy seeing you here.” Elias smiled pleasantly to Jon. 

“Oh, Ah, hello. morning.“ Gerry had told Jon that Elias was a big player in the Beholding’s book, but wasn’t all that sure how. Never interested Gerry enough to look into it, so Jon knew even less. His boss couldn’t be evil could he?

“Hope you had an eventful weekend. I know I for one had quite a nice relaxing time. Treated myself to a nice dinner, after a spa treatment.”

Small talk with the boss of the bosses in the institute. “That sounds pleasant. I didn’t do anything that exciting.” Nope, Jon learned the horrors of the world, and spent most of sunday dealing with emotions. “Just a standard weekend.”

“Sounds pleasant all the same.” Elias held the door for Jon. 

“Thanks.”

“Wonderful chat. Oh, also since I’ve got you here, think you’ve got some time around 11:30 free? I would like to have a meeting with you about how things are going in the Archives. Someone canceled the meeting and I’d planned to email you, but lucky us coming in at the same time.”

“Yeah. Lucky.” Was it really though? 

Elias appeared to be waiting for something. 

“Oh, _oh_ yes, 11:30 is great. I’ll let Gertrude know I’ll head out early.”

“Great. I’ll toss it in the calendar then. See you in a few hours.” Elias diverted away and started up a conversation with someone else as Jon made his way to the stairs going down.

Jon stopped at the door and took a deep breath. He wasn’t ready, but he could never be ready so he went in. 

Gertrude wasn’t in her office, but looking through a stack that Jon had been working on sorting before leaving early on Friday. 

“Morning. Glad to see you didn’t run away.” Gertrude didn’t look away from what she was doing. “Things might’ve been better for you if you had.”

“I.- it actually never occurred to me to run away to be honest.” 

“So you’ve made your choice it seems.” 

Jon stared at her, not all that sure what to do. 

“Well, how would you like to continue, hm?” Gertrude glanced over, the sweetness she had the last month not gone per say, but it was different. Little more on the indifferent side. Maybe it was less fake but the same concerns stuck around? 

“Continue?”

“Yes. Gerard told me he told you, so you aren’t in the dark anymore about the world. So what would you like to do about it. Do you plan on getting more involved, or just continuing to sort papers and research. Nothing has to change with your workload if you don’t want it too.” She paused before continued, “I might give you some files to research if I’m too busy to.” 

“What-, what more is there to get involved in? Horrible things happen in our world that bend reality on the whims of manifestations of human fear. Don’t we just collect stories down here, look into them and document the, well I guess some real encounters?”

“Yes. It seems Gerard didn’t fill you in on what I do then.”

“No, no he didn’t really. Just that you’ve been doing this a while, and that he told you I lied to you.”

She laughed at that. “Quite impressive about that one. You’ve kept it going for long as you did. If I didn’t know any better, I would say you were an agent of the Web.”

Jon looked on edge and responded a little too quickly. “No, gosh no.”

She raised a brow to him. 

“I hate spiders. They, ah knowing there is an entire category to them…” Jon shivered, very visibly unsettled. 

“Indeed. I won’t pry, but I’ll keep in mind to not call you when there is a spider that needs removal.”

“Thanks.”

Gertrude nodded. “Seems you wont be leaving any time soon. Till you make up your mind with how involved you would like to be, please continue as you were. Should you stumble on anything you feel like might fall in line with the Stranger, please send it my way.”

“That’s it?” 

“What were you expecting?”

“Ah, well, I don’t know. Something, well not this. After how Friday went and all the-” Jon cut himself off. Why was she so easy to just spill his guts to? Gerry mentioned it was hard to not tell her things, but she didn’t seem to enjoy it. Plus this question didn’t feel like the strange ones had. 

“Sorry to disappoint. I’m rather busy now if you will excuse me.” Gertrude took the files she was looking for in the pile and returned to her office.

Jon was very confused. He was expecting some kind of stare down like Friday, or after Gerry had called her a lion.

Jon sent Gerry a string of irritated texts about him getting Jon psyched up for nothing, only to get some laughing emojis back. 

\---

Jon should’ve been more worried about his meeting with Elias. 

“Door’s open.” 

Jon hadn’t even knocked yet, he was even a few minutes early for the meeting. 

“Take a seat.” Elias had some papers in front of him, but almost gave off the illusion of working, more than he was actually paying attention to any of them.

Jon nodded and closed the door behind him. “Thanks. You wanted to discuss something?”

“I’ve become aware you learned of the entities and that our institute follows the Beholding. Normally would be detrimental to growth with how you’ve been informed, but I’ve realized there is an opportunity there to be had.”

“How did-”

“I’ve my ways. You may learn them at some point, should you choose to pursue it, but I don’t plan on handing your answers. No, being given information in our line of work is far more dangerous than simply being oblivious. I’m afraid that both Gertrude and Mr.Keay were too relaxed while introducing you to the Entities in that sense. I don’t believe it's intentional by any means. They’ve simply become so used to it being their day to day, its easy to forget someone new to all this, well they’ve forgotten how overwhelming it can all be.” 

Jon was speechless. 

“I’m fairly positive you were told of Smirkes 14, in the form of a checklist with some key pointers? That way of being introduced, opens you up to becoming an appealing victim to their followers. Knowing about the Fears has a draw. And only knowing the key points can make it easy to miss the signs if they don’t follow the script you were given.”

That did make sense. Jon had accepted it about as easily as learning the ingredients for a recipe. But just knowing what is in a dish, doesn’t mean it can be cooked the same as the person sharing the recipe without experimenting, or practice. 

Elias seemed to pause and waited for Jon to think as though he Knew Jon was processing the information properly.

“Alright. So since I’ve learned about this wrong, Wait were you going to let me stumble around bumping into them-” Jon’s words started getting faster before getting caught in his throat.

“Not at all, Jon. The grand population of humanity remain unaware of the Entities, and had you not had your encounter this weekend, you would remain safely among them. Once one becomes aware of them, well it’s hard to look away with even only a hint of them. Now that you are aware of them all, I Know from experience what that can lead to.”

Elias leaned forward on his elbows with his hands crossed. “I would like to help you, but I will be upfront about this, I will not give you direct answers nor guidance unless necessary. It’s important for you to make the connections from what you observe. Anything else would be a disservice to your skills. Given a few years, I’m sure you would have started to make the connections on your own even.”

“Oh. That’s-” Jon stared at Elias with wide eyes. “I’m grateful, but pardon the lack of tack, aren’t you busy with meetings and other administration things? It seems like- why would you want to help me? I can’t see you doing this every time someone stumbles on this ...information. ” 

“No. You are completely right in that aspect. I don’t normally do this. In fact you are probably the first that caught my Eye. You’ve got a potential, and it would be a waste to let that go to waste like my predecessor had with so many.” 

“Potential for what?”

Elias smiled like he wanted Jon to answer.

“Let me guess, that’s something for me to figure out.”

Elias beamed. “Precisely. I’ll block off this time for the next several months so you can have the weekends to ponder about whatever topic of the week.” 

“Do you have a statement or Entity in mind for that or do I just need to be curious about something and bring it with me?”

“Very much the latter. Think on it, and we can simply discuss.” 

Jon didn’t know how to handle that. But he nodded. “All right.” So much for just part time in the archives. 

\--

Jon wasn’t used to this. Three people. Three whole people were focused on Jon, all while he felt the suffocating feeling of being watched. Gerry’s instant friendship from a display of bravery Jon was certain he didn’t have. Gertrude’s odd concern, if it could be called that, of keeping Jon from learning. And Elias’ sudden interest in Jon’s potential for something?

Jon was going to let them all down cause he was none of those things. 

“Wooh, you look like shit.” Tim leaned on Jon’s desk as he found Jon with his face to the surface of it.

“I might as well be,” Jon mumbled. 

“Yikes. That bad of a weekend, or did Archives melt your brain?”

“Neither, just-” Jon sat up and looked utterly pathetic as he fixed his glasses. “Just somehow over the weekend, a handful of people decided that I was interesting enough to pay attention for reasons I don’t get and I don’t get it. I’m a boring human at best, I’m cranky and-”

“Gunna stop you there. Let me get this straight, you are miserable because people like you?”

“When you put it that way.”

“And I am.”

“Maybe? Its- I feel like I’m lying to them Tim. I don’t even know why I’m telling you this.” 

“Probably cause I’m another one of those humans that enjoys your company? Normally they are called friends, but I can get behind that terminology for you.” Tim shifted playfully from a lean to standing again. 

“I know what friends are Tim. They all aren’t friends. Well one is, but the other two are department heads.” Jon sounded tired.

“Oh ho~ I see. It’s work pressure cause you do your job too well. Jen fighting over you with Gertrude? She does enjoy the comments you write on files.”

“I wish. It's Elias and Gertrude.” 

Tim let out a whistle. “Wow, how did that happen?”

“I haven’t a clue.” Jon sighed. “To top off the pressure of disappointing them both, I can’t seem to shake this headache.” 

“Jen might let you head out early if you tell her. She knows a thing or two about migraines and it sounds like you got a lingering one.” 

“I’ll just work through it. It’s not so bad I can’t. It almost hurts more when I try to relax.”

“Uh-oh maybe you got a spooky migraine that the only cure is over time inflicted on you by the great and mighty founder.” Tim put on his best cheesy horror narration voice.

It was enough to get a smile on Jon’s face. “Spooky is a terrible word and it should be removed from all vocabulary.”

“You’re right, I forgot the proper medical term was haunted head.”

\---  
  
Jon got home late that night, not that anyone was waiting for him or anything. It’s amazing how having someone stay the night in a space makes it seem emptier, but not like he could invite Gerry over all the time to shake the empty feeling. Tim and Sasha had dragged him to dinner with them since he had his whole “why do people like me” complaint earlier in the day. 

He was certain that Tim was trying to make him feel better, but it went better than Jon would’ve figured. Helped that Sasha was there. She seemed to understand Jon’s nervousness about sudden attention. She mostly monopolized Tim’s focus when Jon needed the break. 

Jon still had a few hours before sleep would welcome him. He messed around on the internet for a bit, read some wiki pages. Started by looking at cat breeds thinking about looking into adopting a companion for his place, and somehow ended up in how Greek writing system developed. How he’d gotten there wasn’t exciting but informative, the site he ended up on by clicking through the cited sources had Archive in the name. It got him wondering. What even was the purpose of the Archives? To keep a record of older materials he knew that, but beyond that, he didn’t actually know. 

So he googled it. 

Then proceeded to read and refine his searches as he read more details, wanting to know more specific answers.

It was well past when Jon should’ve slept, looked like he was just going to be staying awake till his shift tomorrow and power through his shift with energy drinks. He had several pages full of notes and reference points he didn’t want to have to look for again if he needed to reference it. There was also a large index card with important keywords like materials or chemicals that might be important to know.

The institute, while an ode to the supernatural, was almost a full disgrace as a library system Jon found out. The information flow through the system was so, not wrong, but certainly ineffective. Why were the statements taken in the archive? That should only receive the closed cases after research was finished with them. 

But it went the other way around, and after working in the archives for a good month now, Jon was fully aware that not all new statements even made it to research. Most of them lacked any follow up at all. It seemed like only luck that the statements research did get were often given at any point in the last 6 months. 

According to what Jon had researched, Archives should be the last department to touch any of the materials. Not to mention, Jon also learned that preserving papers and special handling methods to keep the paper from being destroyed to time was important. 

He could understand not caring about the conditions of the false statement, though he found himself much less harsh on the thought of fake files. Odd how knowing there were true horrors helped him look at the false ones like they had some merit to them.

But the real statements. The right proper ones dripped with fear. The proof that people survived. That had been able to tell their tales. Those deserved to not fade no matter that age. That they sat forgotten in disarray and in chaos-

Jon could almost feel his blood boil at the thought that for the last few decades of lack of care, the mistreatment of the stories, not all that unlike his own, were just tossed aside. Before he knew it, Jon had notes on proper document care methods and a spreadsheet, after looking up the best way to set up a budget request, with a list of equipment and costs. Jon was going to bring up with Gertrude, while intending to send to Elias. They would need to basically start from scratch with organizing anyway, so might as well do it right. 

It was probably the energy drink high, but Jon couldn’t help this odd obsession with preserving what was in the middle of being destroyed in the basement. The feeling seemed to run deep. Maybe it was from guilt of the last several years worth of work disproving the occasional statement that was true, or maybe it was that he hadn’t slept in about 24 hours at this point and had a full shift he needed to clock in for in about an hour. 

It was 7:02am. When did the sunrise? Jon had to be at work in an hour, and it was a 45-minute commute. 

His laptop was quickly shut and left behind as Jon hurried to make sure he didn’t miss the train.

\---

Gertrude didn’t look impressed when Jon entered the Archives like a zombie, energy drink in his hand. He was on time, but at what cost she couldn’t help but wonder from the disheveled look about him. “Had a rough night?” 

“Quite. I started looking into stuff, one thing led to another, and got some ideas of how to better get this place into shape.” He yawned before he continued. “I’ll forward you what I came up with once I get a chance to look over it with a bit of sleep in my system…”

“You didn’t sleep at all, because you were working?” Gertrude didn’t look impressed at all. She reminded Jon a little of when his grandmother would come into Jon’s room after he’d been up all night reading.

Jon looked away. Jen had never given Jon that look when he showed up after an all nighter. Not like they were hourly or anything. 

“There is a cot in the spare storage.”

“Pardon?” Jon looked back at her. 

“There is a cot in the spare storage room. Second door not first. Don’t snoop in any of the boxes, but you are welcome to rest there for a time.”

“I couldn’t-”

“Jonathan. I will not have you in my Archives handling statements while you look like you are about to pass out. Rest a bit for now.”

Jon nodded, very sure that he would lose that battle and was frankly too tired to try at this point. 

Once he was on the cot, sleep came near-instantly, with only a small buzz of a headache he hadn’t realized was there before the room faded. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Elias: Peter. I need more money for the archives  
> Peter: no. I’m still mad at Gertrude for ruining my ritual.   
> Elias: it’s not for her. It’s for the new assistant. He wants to clean up the mess she made of the place. I want to be able to say yes when he brings it up. He used color tabs in a spreadsheet. _Colored tabs Peter!_  
>  \--
> 
> Notes: in the scene with Jon and Elias I wrote with the thought in mind that Elias was cackling mentally the whole time. I enjoy him as a villain but he is frustrating just as much. His goal is very much for Jon to think of him as a friend. 
> 
> As for Jon's night time googling, majority of that is based on my own experience working in a library as an assistant. I love tma very dearly, but there are many aspects of the archives that make no sense to me. Also Martin should be the most competent in the archives since he has several years of library experience under his belt. (which fun tidbit about when I listened to s1, because I'm used to Archives being on the top floor cause basements are the worst place for old papers, I pictured everything happening on top floor, so when the tunnels came up, my dumb brain went "how are their tunnels on the top floor?" and realized I never questioned how the worms were getting there. like were they taking the elevator up?)


	6. First recording

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> cw in end notes.

Jon’s spreadsheet and research caused quite the commotion in the Archives. Gerry sat on Jon’s couch as Jon very animatedly told his side of the tale.

“She just, scoffed at it? Gerry, like a literal guffaw that I even think to take care of any of the papers in that dungeon, was something so terribly absurd. Not like it’s in the job description or anything?! Something about ‘why bother respecting the monsters of the world’. It’s not just monsters in those stories. Doesn’t she-?” Jon was pacing as Gerry nibbled on some of the noodles they’d ordered.

“Dunno what you expected mate. Gertrude doesn’t care about the state of the basement much as she cares about the state of the world.“ 

“I- yes I understand, she stops apocalypses, frequently. I’m not demanding she stop. Wouldn’t it be more helpful if the place wasn’t a mess?” 

Gerry shrugged. “She never seems to have that much trouble with what's in there.“

“The most frustrating part now is Elias liked my plans? He even mentioned the possibility of someone from the library to come down and assist from time to time. ‘Two part-timers to fill the work of one Archivist who is parading around the world fending off fears’ I think is how he worded it?”

“Oh, I bet Gertrude loved that.”

“She stormed out and I haven’t seen her since.” Jon sank into the chair nearest to him. “I’ve been alone down there all last week, and assuming I’ll be again tomorrow. You hear from her at all?”

“Oh yeah. Saw her today. She did seem pretty sour. “

Jon let out a groan. 

“It’s probably a waiting game. She most likely wants you or Elias to bend and give up.”

“Elias went and ordered the supplies I requested after he contacted someone to cross-check it.”

Gerry laughed. “Or maybe she realized you are a sap and will just take over her job while she parades all over the globe hunting monsters?”

“I am not a Sap. I just care about my job.”

“Mmhmm. Don’t get me wrong, or do? I can’t stop you from taking this in any one way. Why do you actually care? I mean, the archives are such a mess, and much as there is down there, maybe only like 3% of it is even real? I know Elias keeps a handful of the really old letters in his office. Your sudden interest for it seems, well seems like it wasn’t your passion a month ago from how you’ve talked about your real job.”

“It’s not that I care, more it bothers me enough cleaning it up is more beneficial than leaving it as it is. The files down there are probably all that is left from a handful of people, its-” his bully didn’t get to leave any trace behind, not even the book that ate him. Jon wasn’t going to spill his guts out so went with, “it feels important now. More than it did a month or so ago.” 

Gerry gave a slanted grin. “Well, seems like it’s at least not a panic result from me bringing you to the dark side.”

“You Vader then?” Jon reached for his glass on the coffee table.

“Nah, Anakin was a little bitch. Elias could be Vader.” Gerry snerked in pride as Jon laughed out the water he was attempting to drink. 

“GERRY christ not while I’m drinking!”

\---

It was Jon again by himself in the archives. He would’ve been in research since Gertrude was still out, but there needed to be room for some of the new shelves Elias ordered. It wasn’t a full set, just enough to get started with, where Jon could put the newly sorted things. 

To get the new ones in, some of the older ones needed to be cleared up. So Jon was grabbing handfuls of statements and just shoving them wherever they would fit for the moment. It was chaotic as it was, so Jon didn’t think he could do much damage. 

There was a knock on the doorframe. “Hey, anyone in here?” a voice called out to the empty space.

“Back here. I’ll be right there.” Jon put down the file he was looking at. Didn’t mean to get distracted while putting files in boxes, didn’t mean to pick a random one and read it. He took it out with him since he knew if he put it on the shelf he would never see it again. Jon wanted to know how it ended. 

“What can I help you with?” Jon set the file he was looking at on one of the desks. 

It was someone from artifacts, Frank, Francis?, Jon couldn't remember. “Had someone bring in a cursed thing and wanted him to leave a statement about it. It’ll have to be recorded and transcribed though, so not my department if someone here can do it. You know how to handle it?”

“Ah, yes, in Theory...Needs to be recorded?”

“Yeah, poor blokes too messed up to be able to write at the moment and he didn’t want to ever return here.” 

Jon nodded. “Let me grab something to record with if you want to get him settled in the room. I’ll be right there.”

Freddrick(?) nodded. “Gotcha.” and went to get the statement giver.

Jon went into Gertrude’s office to look for a laptop or something to record with. After searching for a minute or so, he only found an old tape recorder. It looked like there was a blank tape in it, but Jon turned it on to make sure. He didn’t want to invoke Gertrude’s wrath by recording over anything that might be important. He fast-forwarded a few times, and once content it was empty, Jon made his way to the recording room. 

Phineas(?) stood when Jon got there. “Cool, This is Jon, he’ll be helping you from here.” 

The statement giver nodded. “Thank you for your help so far.” His voice was barely more than a whisper. Definity on the embarrassed to ‘be there’ end of a whisper. 

Jon was surprised by the statement giver’s appearance. He looked like he couldn’t have been out of college yet, but the roots of his hair were completely grey already. Jon also understood why the man had to do the statement verbally. His hands were completely wrapped in bandages and gauze. Looked like a nasty accident. 

“Hello. I’m Jonathan Sims. An archival assistant.” Jon pressed record on the cassette player. “We normally have a form for you to fill out but seeing as you currently don’t seem able, I would like to get verbal confirmation that you understand the terms. Does the institute have permission to record everything we discuss and use it as a reference for anything we may need in the future?” 

“You do. Can’t say it would do you much good to keep this on record, like I told the other guy, but sharing what happened...it might feel good to tell someone that might believe me.”

“Thank you. If you could state your name, what the statement is regarding.”

“Yeah, Right. So My name is Greg Young. I’m here because of a cursed blacklight.“

“Thank you. Statement recorded-” Jon stumbled slightly to check his phone for the date, also realizing he could’ve used his phone to record in hindsight. “Statement recorded December 16th, 2013. Statement begins.”

Greg reached into his bag and pulled out a small purple light bulb and a torch that looked the right size for it. 

> “I didn’t come here to leave a statement. I heard this place collected cursed things, and this is pretty frigin’ cursed. I’ve tried getting rid of it by so many different means, but I keep finding reasons to pull it out of the trash, or stopping before crushing it.
> 
> “But I would feel bad giving it to a random person on the street as it was given to me, so you lot make cursed things your business. I can’t feel bad leaving it with someone who signed up for this kind of madness.”

Jon made a slight disapproval noise. Not that he had shaken off his cursed object by any better means. 

> “I’m not crazy! Here. Let me start over. I like to party. Raves, concerts, bbqs. If there is a gathering were groups of people who I barely know get together, all my friends know to invite me. So here I was at this rave. It was lit. And then this one chick comes up to me and hands me this flashlight. She said it looked like I was having a good time, and this could make it better. 
> 
> “Couldn’t help but agree at the time, cause it had a blacklight in it, and those things make everything look cooler in places were people wear all kinds of color combos.
> 
> “So I turn it on and start waving it around for a good time, but I loose her in the crowd at some point, so I took it home with me. Next morning my roommate found it on our table and we laughed about how cool it was to have a bulb small enough for a torch. He turned it on and shined it on his face, then I saw there on his forehead was some writing. 
> 
> “I laughed and told him it looked like someone wrote something on his forehead. So I tried to help him get it off. It was a date and said heartbreak.“ 

Greg’s voice got shaky as he let out a sobbing laugh. 

> “We joked at the time, maybe it was a girl pretending to give him her number or something. But when the date ended up coming around, did you know you can have a hole in your heart all your life and not notice until it's too late?” 

Greg took a deep breath.

> “Well. I- I was on the market for a new roommate. They were sweet and understanding about any irritations I had from them entering my space that was once filled by a very different person. Either way, they are still great. One of my best mates. They stumbled on the torch while their family was over and their younger sister pointed it at everyone. See what colors would react with it and whatnot.
> 
> “It was only when the light passed over their father that there was something on anyone's forehead. And then I remembered what had happened when I got it. I panicked, and rest of the night didn’t go well for me. I retreated to my room cause I didn’t want to embarrass them in from of their family or worry them. I explained it away as the event reminded me of something that had happened with my past roommate, and it became too much too quick. Their family understood too. 
> 
> “Their father’s had simply said ‘Heroic, 12.12.12.’ That wasn’t something I could even wrap my mind around let alone try to warn them about. And what was worse, I was _curious_. What could heroic mean? 
> 
> “So I kept my eye out for when the date rolled along. I mean everyone was. Supposed to be one of the big ends predicted and what not. Before dinner, my roommate got a call and I was prepared though they didn’t notice. I knew what the call was about from the ringtone. There was an accident at their father’s workplace. It’s not my details to share, but their father’s final moments saved at least 10 people directly, and a potential 100 more. 
> 
> “So yeah. Pretty dang heroic.”
> 
> “I started to become less scared, and more curious. Wanted to see how it actually worked. So for the next month or so, I increased my party going. I dragged my roommate with me to try and cheer them up in the process. I’d bring the torch with me, and shine in around, see if there were any with writings. 
> 
> “There were. And I would do my best to follow up on them. After one or two more people I followed up on, I was seeing their names in addition. Made looking up how things played out so much easier with the internet. Oddly enough, I never even had to write the names down. I would simply know which day I would need to look up which person to see what the words played out as. 
> 
> “It was simple curiosity, not like I had any alternative reasoning behind it. I don’t wish for them to die or anything. So I stopped going to parties cause I was starting to creep myself out. Worried it was going to change me. So I locked it in a drawer. I think part of me didn’t want to be rid of it completely. Being able to Know that kinda thing was too tempting to hang onto. 
> 
> “Then about a week later. A lady walked under a blacklight and I saw it. It wasn’t even my light. Just some display in a window of a party shop. 
> 
> “So I knew I had to get rid of it. But before I did, I went to one last party. One more couldn’t have hurt. It did. But I don’t regret it.“

Greg held up his hands. 

> “Long story short, there was a fellow whose date lined up with the day, and it said crushed. I didn’t think at the time, it was though everything stopped except me and him. Before I knew it, my arms were under a fallen bass speaker as were his legs. But not the rest of him. The last thing I remember before waking up in the hospital weeks later was the words vanishing from his forehead.”
> 
> “He contacted me after I woke up, too. Why I knew I had to get rid of the torch. Now I know I could’ve changed those people’s fates before, it- well it’s a burden to bear now. But one I’m prepared for. I just wasnt the temptation gone, cause I swear I can still feel the urge to just peek, one more time.“
> 
> “I guess that's it? Shit, I didn’t mean to say that much.”

Jon let out a breath he didn’t know he was holding. 

“I’ve heard that can happen with statements. Thank you for the details. It will be helpful with properly handling the torch.”

“So you believe me?”

“I- I’m not in a position to say one way or another, but if it’s a comfort, there are strange things in the world. You deciding to separate from it seems like a good choice to make.”

Greg smiled. “Just gunna pull a guess and say you’ve got some curiosity brewing? Ha, who knows, maybe you will be in this set telling a coworker some sort of horror of your own.” He seemed much more cheerful than Jon would’ve expected considering how he came in. Maybe it was that the torch wasn’t on him? 

“I can’t imagine what kind of mess I could get myself into.“

Greg got up unprompted. “Mind leading me out? I’m still lacking some strength in my arms after everything.” 

“Not at all. Oh, I forgot this was going. Ah, Statement ends.” Click.

\---

Jon screamed as Gerry poked the back of Jon’s neck. 

“Gerry, What the??” Jon pulled out the earbuds that were connected to the tape recorder. 

“Ohh, that’s why you weren’t responding. What kinda music you listening to?”

“Not music. Thought that might not be a bad idea if I’m going to be here by myself for a while...No, I was transcribing a statement from earlier today. It was about a blacklight torch that would make people's deaths appear on their forehead.” 

“Didn’t ask what it was about. You think it was real?”

Jon paused. “I-don’t want to, but I don’t think he was making it up. I’m not in any rush to test out the torch myself, I’ll admit I’m curious. He mentioned being able to save someone from their fate with it for a price.”

“Oooh that sounds pretty interesting. This it?” Gerry picked up the torch and bulb. Jon wanted to drop it off in artifacts earlier, but they were dealing with something and told him to hang onto it till lunch. 

“Yes. I don’t think its- Gerry!”

The black light was shining on Jon. “Things faulty. Nothing on your forehead.” 

Jon sputtered trying to make words but failed due the need to say many things at once. Jon couldn’t fathom how Gerry just recklessly interacted with it. Jon had spent the last hour nervously staring at it. Jon reached to take it back when Gerry moved out of Jon’s range.

Jon finally settled on. “It only shows the deaths if they are less than a month away, otherwise nothing appears.” 

“Dang, the dude must’ve done some heavy investigations before coming here to figure out the month thing. Very End. Though maybe some Beholding if it was curiosity-driven? What do you think?”

“Are you quizzing me?”

“Yeah. it’s a good example for you cause it's like soup. Plus don’t you have that meeting with Bossman? You can show off.”

“Oh! Is it that late?” Jon rushed to look at his phone, 11:33 am. He was late. He cursed under his breath as he took the tape out of the recorder and wrote a quick note of ‘don’t touch, in the middle of transcribing. Don’t want to lose place’ and wrapped the tape in it. He left it on the desk he was using. 

“You expect Gertrude to be able to read that?”

“I hope she can. Doubt she will be in.”

“Doubts well placed. She’s on a plane right now to who knows where.” 

“Are you ki-?” Jon groaned. 

“Nope. You’ll get used to it. Meantime, once you are done with your thing, want to grab lunch with me?”

“Sounds like a plan. Can’t stop if some coworkers from research end up tagging along. They’ve been forcing me to take lunch.”

Gerry laughed as he waved Jon off.

\--

Elias hadn’t been upset with Jon being late, but rather seemed excited Jon was managing well without Gertrude.

“That sounds like quite the statement.” Elias stirred his coffee a bit as Jon finished summing up what his morning was like seeing as it was far fresher than any of the statements he’d planned on bringing up from the week before. “What are your thoughts on it? Since you believe it’s an account of a real encounter?”

“Well, Gerry actually mentioned a mix between the End and the Beholding, but the End didn’t feel, I mean maybe I don’t understand-”

“There is no right or wrong answer I’m looking to hear from you. I hardly Know the details of the statement myself. I want to know what your impressions were from it.”

“Right. Well. If I were to do the follow up on my thoughts alone, I would probably mention that he seemed to be trapped in curiosity of it, how the torch worked, the details of what it showed, why things were worded the way it was, not necessarily that people would be dying? He never seemed scared of the death, but that he watched and did nothing.

“And that the names showed after some time of learning, it was almost like a reward? At that point, he’d figured out that it only showed up when the time was close. Only within the month. Plus it doesn’t feel like the End would care about names. Least not in the context of looking up the people later.” Jon was fairly lost in his own words to notice the grin on Elias’ face.

Elias knew the statement, he was Watching, and at no point did Greg mention that the dates were always less than a month away.

“It was almost like he was just the observer of an object he shouldn’t have had in the first place. Least how he seemed to word it. Also what he mentioned at the end. How similar my- Heh, well I guess that part was right.”

“Oh?” Elias wanted Jon to elaborate. 

“He’d mentioned I seemed to have a curiosity around me, that I might be making a statement myself if I keep at it. He’s not wrong. I can’t just quit. Not like how he got rid of the torch.”

“I’m very glad to hear that Jon. Shame our discussion on the statement wasn’t recorded follow-up. You are truly a wonderful researcher. Oh, not to distract because that was a wonderful analysis but our time is running short.”

Jon nodded as Elias continued. 

“About the archives. Seeing as Gertrude will be out for a few weeks, I discussed getting you some help from the Library staff. I’ll be bringing someone down tomorrow to start assisting with you as I’d like to be able to have four of the shelves empty come Wednesday so we can install the new ones when they get here Thursday. I hope you will be able to show him the ropes.”

“Yes, Of course.”

“Now, I don’t believe he is aware of the Entities, but he does have access to artifact storage. Not that I expect it to come up, I feel discussing it here, rather than when he is around would be the better approach.”

“Ah, yeah.” Jon nodded again. It had been so easy to talk about the statement. How absurd was that? Talk about literal horror, easy. Talk about coworker though, and Jon’s mind went completely blank.

Elias and Jon spent the last few minutes discussing some menial work stuff, mostly how Elias hoped Jon would get along with the other assistant, and how the other will be in the archives full time for the week, and Jon was welcome to join. About how he could easily clear it with Jon’s supervisor. 

With everything wrapped up, Jon left to meet up with Gerry. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Tim: You see that goth head down to Archives? Seems close to lunch. Think spooky story or adorable lunch date? Wanna bet if Jon dates goths?  
> Sasha: wouldn't be a far bet. I know he's dated goths.  
> Tim: Wait what. Sasha. don't leave me hanging on that! SASHA!!
> 
> \--
> 
>  **Cw** : The End centric statement. Unnoticed Heart problems mentioned. Not detailed injury description of hands. (let me know if I missed any cw)
> 
> \--  
> Oops, this chapter ended up almost 2k words longer than normal >.>);;; almost hit the 4k mark. Hope it was a fun read. Got the idea for the blacklight cause I ordered one recently for an art thing I’m doing. Brain went “hey, what if a spooky happened” and thus blacklight torch statement came to be xDDD
> 
> Is it a bit of a beholding speed run on Jon's part? Yeah. but I got plans and Jon needs to Know. 
> 
> Also f’it. Martin is on his way cause I miss him. I’ll be updating tags next chapter. ᕕ( ゜◤ﾟ)ᕗ


	7. Jon Knows the weather

“So how exactly did you and Jon meet?” Tim raised a brow after Gerry had finished telling a tale from the last metal concert he had attended. So far Tim had gathered Gerry and Jon seemed pretty different. 

“Oh, Jon spent a month stalking me to try and my number so he could return some ashes to me.” Gerry sounded quite cheerful intentionally to make it seem as creepy as possible. 

Jon sputtered, spilling his water. “I swear, it’s not safe to drink anything around you.” He reached for some napkins. “And that is not what happened, please don’t believe him.”

Gerry grinned. “Just wanted to see how you would react. And yeah, Jon’s not cool enough to pick up stalking as a hobby. Nah, Just meet him through Gertrude a few weeks back. Cool dude when he isn’t in academic mode.”

Both Tim and Sasha nodded to that.

“What, Academic mode? I- don't?” It wasn’t that Jon couldn’t follow what they meant. He was aware he was different in and out of work. “It’s called being professional?”

Tim nodded. “Yup. Academic mode.”

“That’s not-.” Jon rubbed the bridge of his nose. “Nevermind. Gerry normally assists Gertrude out of work, and I needed to contact him for some information.”

“And we hit it off. Jon’s a pretty entertaining guy.” Gerry handed Jon some more napkins. “So, any of you free on Friday? There is this place I wanted to check out, and it would be fun to have company?”

They continued chatting for the rest of the lunch period, in the end leaving Tim and Sasha placing bets if Jon and Gerry were romantic or platonic. 

\---

Jon made sure to sleep. If he was going to be of any use to whoever Elias was bringing in, they both needed him to be rested. It led to the chain reaction of Jon going to sleep early, then waking up early, to the coffee shop since had time before Jon needed to be to work. But staying home and waiting made him restless, so getting some coffee and to read too seemed like a solid plan.

At the coffee shop, the person in line before him was taking a while to pick out what they wanted, so Jon started to people watch. There was a tired man that seemed to be furious at something on his laptop screen, a lady laughing at her phone, an older gentleman who seemed to just be enjoying the morning brew, a blond whose entire outfit could make a rainbow look bland, A lady in red-

Jon did a double-take on the blond with the wild outfit. The man waved, and something about the way his hand moved, set off alarms in Jon’s mind he never knew were there. They were conflicting alarms which didn’t help. Run and Watch. To get out of there, and to stay just to figure out how the other-

“Sir, Can I get you something?” the barista snapped Jon out of the daze. 

“Ah- Sorry, long night. Just a black coffee.” Jon glanced over and the man was gone. 

\--

Jon opted to not stay in the coffee shop like he’d originally planned and headed to the archives early. Only an hour before his normal time. Elias having the foresight for getting Jon a key to the place has been paying off since Gertrude hasn’t been in truly paid off now. The institute was practically barren and the security guard very cheerfully informed Jon when he’d come in that they didn’t even know there was a lock on the archives. 

So, Jon lucked out Elias seemed to realize this would happen. Jon took the time to finish up with the transcript from yesterday. It was so hard to finish now that he’d been interrupted. The flow felt wrong and he couldn’t focus on it picking it up in the middle. So Jon tried to start over, just listen in and read along, until it became time to write again.

That seemed to do the trick till there was the sound of chaos outside the door. 

Jon sighed heavily and stopped the tape. He opened the door to yell at whoever had interrupted him, only for a dog to bolt past him into the archives. 

“What?” Jon wasn’t awake enough to deal with this. 

“Whose dog is this?” Jon called into the hallway not seeing anyone. “Christ.” Jon left the door ajar and tried to catch the dog that happily ran through the isles. 

“Get over here.” Jon struggled to corner the creature. He got a good look at it as its tail seemed to be nothing more than a blur. It was a terrier looking thing that couldn’t have been more than 15lbs, and it was prepared to zoom past Jon the second he moved. 

“Excuse me, has anyone seen a dog?” Jon could hear someone calling out from the hall.

“In here. I’ve got it cornered.” Back up would hopefully get this resolved so Jon could try to finish up transcribing that statement before Elias came to introduce the other person that would be helping Jon out. 

The stranger came rushing in. “Thanks, could you call out again for me?”

“This way.” 

“Ah!” The stranger appeared at the end of the aisle and the dog immediately took the movement as play and ran right past Jon. Past the newcomer as well. “Shoot, almost had him. Come here little buddy.” The man took off after the dog. 

Jon followed behind. 

“Why is there a dog loose?” Jon was trying to corner the dog between him and the stranger.

“I kinda let him in- It wasn’t intentional!” He got defensive mid sentence in response to the glare from Jon. “I, my hands were full, so I opened the door with my foot, and he took the opening.”

Jon sighed. “It’s too early for this...Let's just catch it and get it out of here. I’ve got work to get done. And only so much ti-” Jon reached to catch the dog as it ran past him. 

“Really sorry about this. I’m Martin by the way.” Martin stood next to Jon for a moment trying to strategize where to position himself next. 

“Jon. Lets just get this-”

“We should probably try to stop chasing, I’m thinking it might just be playtime for him. Do you have any snacks we could lure him with?”

Jon shook his head. “I don’t make a habit of bringing food down here.”

“Drat. I left my lunch up with Rosie.” Martin got down and started to move his hand around to try and get the dog to get closer. He made a little clicking noise to accompany the hand motion. 

“Doesn’t that only work with cats? The pspsps thing?”

“Dogs respond to it too. I think. Don’t they?”

“I don’t know. I’ve never had a dog before.” Jon tried to get into a better position to grab the dog if it came closer to Martin. 

“Me neither. Mum was allergic.“

“I’ve had a cat though. I can confirm they like the pspsps thing.” Jon unhelpfully added.

“Wonderful. Least we will be covered if a cat gets in.” Martin’s retort sounded on edge since it was clearly not information that would help in this situation. 

“Coming from the man who let a dog in. A cat would be much more polite in it’s invasion.” Jon snapped back. 

In that moment a whistle came from behind the two and the dog ran right for it. Elias reaches down and skillfully picked up the little menus. “Dogs tend to respond to whistles, but if they are trained for clicks, that does the trick as well.”

“E-Elias.” “Mr.Bouchard.” Both Jon and Martin turned to see their boss grin, while the dog licked his face. 

“I see you two’ve become acquainted so I’ll leave you to it. I’ll find out where this little fellow belongs and check back in with you.”

Jon stood watching Elias head out and close the door behind him. 

Martin sounded as though he had been holding his breath. “I was expecting so much worse. Do you think he is mad? That grin...”

“That’s Elias’ normal face.” Jon rubbed the space between his eyes before looking to Martin. “Let me guess, you are the transfer from the library to help out with this mess?”

“Y-yes! I, Mr.Bouchard told me he would introduce us today and I was to meet him in his office, but now I’m not sure if he means for me to still meet him, or if that counted as introducing us.” Martin seemed to be getting more and more nervous as he spoke. 

“I’d say he counted that as the introduction.” Jon let out a huff that could be a laugh. “You mentioned you left some things with Rosie?”

“Oh yeah thats right, my lunch! I should probably get it-”

“Go on. I’ll be here when you get back and we can start for real. Don’t take too long.” 

“R-right!” Martin hurried off. 

Jon returned to the desk he was working at, passively thinking he should designate two of them as his, and the other two for Martin, and went to continue the transcription. He was almost finished with it after all. 

By the time Martin returned, Jon was sucked into his work. Martin waited quietly as he was unsure what to do, but interrupting Jon didn’t seem like that. 

Jon jumped when he saw Martin. “Christ, Martin. When did you?”

“Sorry sorry. Um, a few minutes ago. You looked really into it, so I didn’t want to interrupt. Does saying it out loud help transcribe? I can’t imagine it’s easy to recite it word for word while listening to it.”

“Oh, I hadn’t noticed I was speaking. That, Well Anyway. It’s ready to be filed. If there was some place to file it.” Jon’s contempt for the system seemed to grow by the day. Maybe it was because he could look forward to the new shelves by Friday?

“I suppose we should start then. The Head Archivist is currently away on business, so I’ll be handling things I guess? I can show you around, but it won't do too much good in this mess.”

“It looks a bit untidy but not all that bad?” Martin was looking around. 

“Untidy is a good way to put it. But it’s beyond bad. There isn’t an order at all to any of the files. At the moment the sorting is if it fits, that's where the file goes.” 

Martin took in a sharp breath. “Oh, that’s bad. Elias is alright with that? Well, I mean obviously not since we are here now.”

“Elias was unaware of how bad it was. When I told him about it he basically ordered the new shelves on the spot.” Jon had been pretty content with himself from Elias’ praise even as Gertrude and Elias argued over it. 

“And he didn’t fire Gertrude? Not that I would want him to or anything, but like, if she hasn’t been doing her job...?” Martin trailed off.

Jon didn’t want to point out Gertrude was still hired cause she was saving the world from Fear monsters so her job was pretty secure, so he went with. “I think he doesn’t want to let her go so close to retirement. Not to mention she’s been here for so many decades, even before Elias was here, it would be cruel. Why we are here I guess?”

“Think he will make us compete for head position when she retires?” Martin had a nervousness mixed with the joke.

“I can imagine. Can’t say I would fight you for it.”

“Oh? Is there something cursed about it?” 

“Sorry, not like that. I just enjoy research. This place is impossible to do what it was supposed to. I came down here for a file before I transferred here part-time and after seeing the state it was in, well here we are.”

Martin nodded. “Makes sense. So um, where do we begin?”

“Right.” Jon started to give Martin the tour of the place, showed him how he’d been getting everything prepared for when the shelves came in. Jon showed him all the research on how to properly handle the files, with Martin adding in some facts he’d learned from working with older books in the Library. 

Jon was impressed and started to more discuss document care with Martin, rather than instructing him as Jon’d originally planned to do. Jon also ended up showing Martin the spreadsheet and they joked Jon had done too good a job on it and Elias would never let him leave the Archives. 

Both Jon and Martin didn’t share this with each other, but they were both pretty happy that the earlier incident didn’t make working together sour. 

Jon thought Martin was a pretty agreeable guy, who Jon figured he could trust to work beside. Jon didn’t have a hard time focusing when Martin talked, and Martin didn’t seem to mind when Jon asked him to repeat something after getting lost in the sounds rather than understanding the words. 

Martin enjoyed how driven Jon was with the project. Martin felt like he could write poetry describing the way Jon’s eyes lit up when he was excited. 

They didn’t have a crush...

\---

When lunch rolled around, Tim burst into the room.   
  
“Lunch time! Time to make sure the basement dweller sees some sunlight! Oh hi, Martin right? From the library?” 

Martin jumped at the sudden energy. Things have been relatively calm around Jon all morning, that the energy shift caught him off guard. “Yes, I’m Martin. You are?”

“Tim. I work in research and am self-assigned caretaker of the cardigan gremlin here.”

Jon groaned as he put down what he was working on. “I’m perfectly capable of taking care of myself.” 

“Yup. Except I be you haven’t eaten all day? Skipped breakfast?”

There was silence in response. 

“Jon, did you not eat?” Martin looked concerned. 

Jon looked away from the both of them. “I had...Coffee.”

“Jon! That’s not breakfast.” Martin sounded frustrated, but not quite angry. Worried might be a little closer. 

“I never eat breakfast. It’s fine. I'm fine.” 

“Mmhmm, why we force lunch on you from time to time. Today is one of the times. Gotta make sure you don’t pass out down there.”

“I will not- Tim you are going to worry Martin. I don’t pass out if I don’t eat.”

“I’m not worried. You are eating lunch so it won't be a problem.” Martin didn’t know how much to mimic Tim who was clearly close with Jon, but he also didn’t want to seem pathetic. Martin made a mental note to worry about Jon. 

“Well, we ready then? Martin, you want to come too? Celebrate with sometime in the sun.”

“It’s raining.” Jon mumbled. 

“Not last I checked. Lets go.”

“I brought a lunch-” Martin tried to chime in before Tim interrupted. 

“Nah, looks like you have dinner instead.” Tim started to head out and follow without a fuss.

“You really don’t have to let him drag you out if you don’t want to, though the company would be nice.” Jon added as the three started to move up the stairs.

“Hm, well I guess it wouldn’t hurt to come along.”

Sasha waited for them in the lobby. “Hey boys. Oh, nice you grabbed your umbrella. I was about to text you to grab it Jon.” She tossed Tim’s umbrella to him. 

“Hey, look at that. You called it Jon.”

Jon smiled. “Seems that way. Guess I just have a way of being right sometimes.” He tried to play off that he wasn’t nervous, in truth, Jon thought about it and realized two things. The first was he had no idea why he had thought it was raining, there were no windows and the weather didn’t call for rain till tomorrow. The second was he was so sure he would need the umbrella that it wasn’t an active thought to grab it. It was just a fact he would need it. 

“Just like you were right about that one case with the wooden bird.” Sasha grinned.

“Not the bird again…” Jon started to head for the door at a slightly faster pace.

“I want to know.” Martin added in as he followed.

“Oh, this is good. So Jon-” Tim started to tell the story of how Jon had gotten into an argument about wood varnishes while interviewing someone for the case. It came down to Jon explaining away the supernatural properties of the bird by having an oddly deep understanding of how various woods react in certain situations and the drying ratios of the oils in varnish. 

It had resulted in a filed complaint, and when informed, Jon had been frustrated and practically everyone in research heard, ‘I can’t help that he didn’t flip the bird when he needed to!’ which without the context of the wooden bird needed more time to dry on one of the sides, everyone in the department needed a minute to get their composure back. 

Martin chuckled at the punch line of the story, but also at that Jon, while resigned to his fate, still seemed to try to explain why it wasn’t funny, and his words were being used out of context.

Martin tried to fight back the thoughts of he could get used to this. It was a temporary thing, only help out for a few weeks was what Elias had said. Once he was back in the library, they would have no reas-

“Martin, Are you going to come in?” Jon was ahead of him holding the door. Tim and Sasha already at the counter ordering. 

“Oh, yeah, sorry. Got lost in my head there a sec.” 

“Happens to the best of us. If you want to let Tim and Sasha know what you’d like I’m off to grab us a table.”

Martin nodded and Jon smiled in response. It wasn’t like a grin or anything super emotive, just a positive looking face. Small creases around the edges of those eyes. The stunning color Martin could almost just declare his favorite color on the spot. Martin realized he was in trouble as he got to Tim and Sasha. They were grinning. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Beholding: *the special boy need not get wet. informs of wet*  
> Jon: Hmm, guess never hurts to be prepared. 
> 
> \--
> 
> And there was a dog in the archives. xDD
> 
> dunno if it's a me thing or not, but sometimes when someone has a nice sounding voice, I’ll forget to understand the words being said. That's Jon pinning. Not sure if should update tags to include slow burn, cause I feel like this wont be that. just lotsa pinning since romance wasn't planned focus of fic. feel like slow burn is only good for when it's the focus? Maybe? I dunno how the heck to tag junk ><) 
> 
> Also with the varnish thing. I don't actually know what could be spooky about it drying wrong (maybe like bubbles in the undercoat spelled beware or resembled someone dead or something?) and while I haven't used the stuff in years, I know a weird amount of how to mess up using it from my childhood. so kinda based on that (I didn't look up much for it)


	8. These are the moments

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This takes place over the course of like a month or so?

After lunch, things went rather smoothly. Jon and Martin parted ways with Tim and Sasha and head back to the Archives. It was strange for them both. Jon because he normally would be in research starting on whatever cases were on his desk. Martin because his time was spent in the Library shelving returned books. 

This was going to be their schedules for at least the rest of the week. 

“It’s weird. How quiet it is down here I mean. Going into the basement after such a cheerful meal. Sasha and Tim were fun.” Martin hung up his coat after entering. 

“It’s something that takes some getting used to. You being here is quite the improvement over the last week or so.”

“Oh, that's right, Gertrude’s been out. I hope she isn’t sick or anything. She always seems so frail.” Ah, Martin has only seen sweet old lady Gertrude from the sounds of it. Or at least he hasn’t seen the ‘will fight monsters for breakfast’ Gertrude. 

“Yeah. She is off, hmm I think Gerry -he’s someone that comes in a lot, he’s close to Gertrude- he said she was making a trip to Canada for something?” 

“Oh, wow that's a trip for sure.”

“Mhmm. No idea when to expect her back. Why Elias wanted to get me some help. Think he was worried I might end up lonely or something? Wasn’t lonely at all. Just quiet.” 

“Oh.” Martin’s tone spoke volumes on how confident Martin wasn’t. 

“Not that I don’t appreciate you being here. Your experience with cataloging will be- Is quite helpful.” Jon didn’t miss how that didn’t seem to hit the reassuring beat with Martin that he had hoped. ” I’m just pointing out it’s quiet, not lonely. There is a distinct difference which is important to point out, I think. I’m sure it has something to do with all the piles of statements absorbing the sound or something.” 

“Paper can do that. Sometimes it feels like just me in the library when I know that couldn’t possibly be the case. I’m not too fond of the feeling. It’s weird, cause when that happens, it’s very noticeable for some reason, like a contrast, but not sure how to explain it?”

Jon pulled a box off one of the shelves that needed cleared. “I can imagine. Like there is this pressure of always having someone watching?”

“Yeah, just like that! Then it just vanishes like leaving behind that feeling of not being worth the time? Do you also?” Martin grabbed a box for himself to sort.

“No- I can’t say I’ve experienced it first hand. The part where it goes away, I mean. The pressure of being watched is something that’s followed be for along time. Got more intense after starting in research.”

“Sounds like paranoia.” 

“If it was unpleasant I would agree. It used to be, but I’ve been, hmm, well, it’s been nice I think. Ask me in an hour and it might be a different story.”

“Sounds about as complicated as anything might find in these statements. There are some real creepy ones. This one is about a creeping dark jelly.” Martin was flipping through the first file in the box and made a face at some of the details. “There is even a ziplock baggy with a stained cloth in it.”

“I- ah I wouldn’t open the bag if I were you.”

“I wasn’t going to, but just, that can’t be good for storing the files.”

“Hmm, right, I’ll have to ask Elias about it, if there were an alternate way to store those kinds of things.” Jon made a note in his phone. “If you want to set that one aside for now, so it doesn’t get lost in this mess.”

Martin nodded and put it in an empty box nearby, and marked the box with an indicator of “weird and odd things”. 

The two continued until the shelf was completely clear. Having Martin around helped like crazy. Jon could imagine he would’ve had to pull overtime to get it cleared enough for the new shelves. 

\--

Day two followed the same routine and around 4, some movers came in and cleared away the old bookshelves. 

“Well, the easiest part is done. Now to figure out which statements are fiction and which are tr-... probable, so we can sort from there. Have you ever done investigations?” Jon looked to Martin while they sat at the assistant desks. Jon was flipping through a file, while Martin had been working on removing staples from statements. 

“Not really. No. But I’ll do my best to keep up and I promise I won’t bother you or-” Martin was getting nervous again. One thing Jon had noticed over the last two shifts with Martin that when it came to discussing performance, he would get on edge. It was probably just the overwhelming feeling of doing something new after being around, since Martin seemed to have been working the Library for a good five years at this point. 

“Martin, it’s fine. I’m not going to expect you to pull off the kind of research that solves everything. It's not a bother to help you out. You don’t have to get so nervous.”

“Sorry, sorry, I just really need this job, and-” Martin sighed. “And I don’t want to lose the raise after getting it.”

Jon nodded. “How about you proceed with assuming the only thing that could get you fired would be to set fire to the archives, which is easy to avoid with no open flames, and any other mistake can be worked through.” 

“How can you be that confident?”

“Honestly, I wasn’t until about a month ago. If Gertrude could keep her job under these conditions, like I said, we would have to mess up big time for Elias to do anything about it.”

\--

Gerry was at Jon’s again over the weekend. This time the plan was for him to stay over, something about his place being fumigated or something. Jon only half paid attention to the details. 

The current task at hand was Jon trying to clean the mess Gerry made in an attempt to cook, while Gerry was in charge of take out. 

“How did you get it on the ceiling…” 

“My cooking was so good the Vast wanted it? Only the ceiling got in the way?” Gerry popped into the kitchen to help with the mess. “This has never happened before. I’m just as surprised as you are.”

“If I need to repaint my ceiling-”

“I’ll be the first one over with paint rollers. Let me get it.” Gerry motioned to Jon to get off the chair and make room. Jon did and crossed his arms and watched. 

“Fine. do you need the mop?” 

“You...Wait was that really your next step if you couldn’t reach it?”

“...Yes.” 

Gerry grinned. “Get the sauce off with something potentially covered in mud. What could go wrong.”

“Shut up. My mop is clean. I wash it after I use it.”

“That's weird.” 

“Wait, what do you do with your mop when you are done with it?

“Bold of you to assume I have a mop.” Gerry finished up removing as much as he could as Jon did a mixture of a groan and a laugh. “Hmm looks like I’ll be coming by with rollers next weekend. That's gunna stain for sure.”

“Thanks for trying. Least the food is off. I’ll get the paint after work sometime this week.” 

“You know what day? I’ll come along and use the card Gertrude gave me.”

“Do I want to know why you have her card?”

“Because I help her out off payroll, so basically I can charge things to it when it’s entity related.”

“How is this?”

“Remember, Vast’s fault. Or maybe Corruption’s trying to get a foothold in an extension of the Watchers domain.” 

It shouldn’t have been funny, the fears were serious and just the worst out there, but somehow Gerry using them mundanely to justify a bad cooking accident, Jon couldn’t help but smile. 

\--

“Gerry this is Martin, Martin Gerry.” Jon barely looked up from the statement he was transcribing to paper when Gerry invited himself into the archives. 

“Hey, Jon’s mentioned you so I figured it was about time I met you.” Gerry offered up a hand to Martin.

“Hello. He’s told me you are close to Gertrude. Are you her grandson or something? 

“Nah, just a stray she picked up after offing my mum for me.”

“Wha-”

“Ignore that. He thinks he is funny.” Jon glanced up, only one earbud was in so he could multitask. It was getting easier for him to transcribe word for word while keeping up conversions with Martin over the last few days. 

“Matter of fact, I am hilarious. When I want to be. So Martin, whatcha working on while Jon is over there listening to taps.” 

“I’m transcribing a statement. It’s work.” The person that had come in earlier in the day had a story about a haunted room that was near impossible to get light to stay. Fire didn’t even burn bright in it. 

“You’ve been doing that a lot lately, that’s the what, 4th this week?” Gerry sat on Jon’s desk. 

“If Gertrude didn’t just leave, I wouldn’t have to.” There wasn’t spite in his ton, he knew why Gertrude wasn’t around, but he was irritated as much as he found it more interesting to have people tell their tales rather than write it down. 

“Right. Well, I’ll leave you to it. So Martin.” Gerry went over to help Martin out with whatever he was up to.

\--

Jon and Martin both stopped returning to their original departments for the second part of their day. It wasn’t a fast transition, but they both found less and less work for them when they returned. So it became more of a if they were needed they would be called away from the archives, but otherwise, they would return to the basement after lunch.

Statement givers seemed to be coming in more frequently, averaging about three times a week, though normally they would come in after lunch. Jon assumed that they were coming back after being unable to leave their story since afternoon availability was new. He recorded all of them, finding it easier that way than having them try to write it out.

\--

“How are you liking the new shelves?”

“They make things easier to tackle. Not having to worry about being crushed is quite nice.” Jon sat in Elias’s office for their Monday meeting. It’d been a few weeks since the new shelves had been installed and many of the archiving supplies had come in. Jon and Martin had been sorting through the files at a pretty decent pace. Starting with date order, then trying to figure out if the statement was plausible, or purely false. Jon hadn’t filled Martin in on the entities, but did give some pointers he was figuring out along the way. 

“I noticed you’ve been getting outside help with it?”

“Yeah, Gerry stops by on days he is bored. That’s not a problem is it?” 

“Not at all. If he would like a full-time job, I’d be willing to interview him.”

Jon Knew that wasn’t going to happen from past conversations. “I’ll let him know, but I doubt it.”

Elias nodded. “The offer is always open to him.”

\---

“Never gunna happen.” Gerry sat on one of the assistant’s desk while Jon was sorting through a box and Martin had headsets on.

“Yeah, figured I’d let you know anyway. Why are you so against working here anyway?”

“Because I don’t want to get stuck.”

“It’s not like you wouldn’t be able to quit or anything if you found a better job.” 

“Sorry, mate. That is literally in the contract for archive assistants.” 

“What is?” Jon didn’t look up from what he was doing, he almost sounded disinterested. 

“That you can’t quit. Least Gertrude can’t, I’m kinda playing it safe by assuming it trickles down the ladder..”

Jon froze. Then he put down the papers he was sorting, ignoring the feeling of accomplishment that he was certain that the non-fiction piles and fiction piles didn’t have any of the wrong type mixed in. And Jon left the archives without a word, leaving behind a concerned Gerry and a confused Martin. 

Jon couldn’t remember anyone actually quitting, but there also weren’t a lot of new people coming in. The only place that seemed to have a high turnover rate was artifact storage, but he was pretty solidly certain that they weren’t quitting when the people changed out.

Jon needed answers, and it wouldn’t be fair to Gerry how Jon would react if Gerry were the one to give them. 

\--

“You don’t need me to tell you it’s true when you already know..” Elias sat at his desk without an apologetic look on his face. 

“Elias, what the hell? Why didn’t- I- has it been this way the whole time?” Jon slumped into the chair across. 

“Jon.”

“Don’t Jon me. I- This is beyond the normal ‘I’m curious about the world thing’, Elias. You are the only source of reference for researching answers without me breaking into your office. And I really don’t think either of us would like that.”

“Point taken. Go on.”

“Have I been unable to quit since I got my job in research?” 

Elias paused for a moment considering how to word it to Jon. “Would you have wanted to leave if given the option? Do you dislike your job?”

“...No. I’m- Just I need to know. Is it that way with every position here or just some?” Jon needed to know if others were stuck, worse enough he’d dragged Martin into this by accepting help, but Sasha and Tim, and that dude that sat next to him in research Jon could never remember the name of. 

Jon was unaware of it, but Elias could see in Jon’s reach for information, the Beholding shimmered behind Jon’s eyes.

Elias smiled. “Some stronger than others, but all of them are bound by contract. There are ways for people to leave, but-” 

“But their jobs aren’t as ‘at will’ as everyone is led to believe.” His voice was dry as it left his mouth. At least Jon didn’t have to have the guilt of dragging Martin in.

“Took the words right out of my mouth. Everyone who applies here has a drive, I doubt anyone here would leave even if they were able.” 

“Why though. What purpose is there to use Fear, well, the Beholding to tie people here?”

“The original intent is known only to the founder. Jonah Magnus would be the one you would need to ask for answers to that question.” Elias let out a chuckle at that. “Trust me when I say I’m much more selective in hiring than one would think. One prerequisite I have is only hiring people who’ve been touched by other entities. It’s not on the job listings of course, but I’ve found it has a way to shake even particularly nasty creatures of people’s tails. Once properly aligned with an Entity most others lose interest in a person.”

“Like with Crew and the Lichtenberg creature.” Jon’s head started to throb with the telltale signs of his reoccurring headaches he’d been having.

“Pardon?”

“He had an encounter, he was being toyed with by a creature of the Spiral and turned to the Vast to-.”

“Where did you hear about that?”

“I’ve been reading statements.” Jon didn’t remember a statement from Michael Crew. Where had he even-

“Wait, I don’t- there wasn’t, but how did I-?” Jon was distracted as he tried to figure out where he’d read about that. Trying to figure that out, Jon’s thoughts started to race. Like a storm that came out of nowhere and information was falling on him like rain.

“No no no, Jon this is good. Don’t panic.” Elias was next to Jon, a hand on his shoulder to get eye to eye with Jon. When did Elias get out of his chair? “Look at me and focus.” 

Jon stared in Elias’s direction until he noticed the color of Elias’s eyes seemed to match Jonah’s from all the paintings around. Jonah Magnus, founder of the institute to be a temple dedicated to the Beholding. More facts about Jonah started to become known but Jon couldn’t seem to grasp them. They slipped away like trying to hold water. Only lingering impressions lingered as Jon’s thoughts began to clear. 

Elias removed his hand from Jon’s shoulder while Jon tried to catch his breath. 

“W-what was that?”

“That was unexpected. You’re progressing much faster than I’d anticipated. Assistants normally aren’t affected this quickly, I’ve certainly never seen a record of it.”

“That doesn’t explain what it was.”

“No it doesn’t. I’m afraid I can’t clarify what it was without consequence. Remember the feeling just now next time it happens. Don't try to fight it.”

Jon hated today even more as he buried his face in his hand. “Next time...right.” 

“Today was a lot. Why not take the rest of the day and get some rest. That can take quite the toll on you when just learning. Consider taking tomorrow as well.”

“Right…” Jon stood without saying parting words with Elias and returned to the archives. He wanted to ask Gerry if that rush was a Beholding thing. Some tiny voice in Jon’s gut told him he already Knew what it was, and telling Gerry would just make trouble. He couldn’t point out what that trouble was, but it wouldn’t create a good change. There was a higher priority on Jon’s mind, something else he needed to share with Martin. 

So what Jon greeted the two with when he returned to the archives was. “Martin, have you ever heard of Smirke?”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> \---
> 
> Elias: Almost broke Jon but he walked it off like a champ. Can you believe the progress? Why he reminds me when I was young. Wonder if I could convince him to help out with the Watchers Crown? What do you think?  
> Lukas: Stop Knowing my number.
> 
> \---
> 
> (meta junk) So in case it was confusing cause it was from Jon’s pov, Elias shoved some of his Jonah memories for Jon to follow out of the Knowing flood since Jon latched onto the name louder than other cause of Elias's eyes, partially because Jon wouldn’t be able to remember them after the fact, and partially cause he was feeding the Eye with his secret Jon didn’t know about, and that would be the easiest and deepest secret. Feeding Jon the juiciest secret he had helped keep the headache away. 
> 
> Some other things couldn’t get in story cause would be too much random small talk but want to share anyway:  
> \- Martin is friends with Tim and Sasha after going to lunch.  
> \- The 4 of them will sometimes take turns bringing lunch after learning Martin has money trouble.  
> \- Gerry joins in on lunches when he can  
> \- Gerry is the only one that’s been to Jon’s flat, but the 5 of them have had a movie night at Sasha’s at least once. 
> 
> \---
> 
> Writing Elias feels slimmy. Everytime he is nice to Jon and Jon falls for it, my inner voice just goes “nooo I’m so sorry Jon.” since Jon has no reason to hate him yet. 
> 
> Hope everyone is doing well~


	9. when the lights go out

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Content warnings in end notes

Martin had been better, but he figured he was doing pretty good all things considered. Supernatural entities in a good chunk of the statements were real. He could handle that. He worked for one and couldn’t quit his job, well that was just good job security. The way Jon looked at him, worried and concerned, offering for Martin to stay at his flat if Martin was worried. That part was rather nice. Martin turned Jon down cause he didn’t want to seem weak, figuring Jon would’ve managed on his own.

Gerry pointed out that it was okay to not want to be alone. Apparently when he’d told Jon about it, Gerry stayed the weekend. It was too late for Martin to be all ‘oh in that case’ and he doubled down on reflex. 

Martin really regretted that. He should’ve taken Jon up on it, or Gerry. Or stayed in the archives. He wished he could be anywhere other than his flat. The light in the hall outside of his flat had gone out when Martin got home. Then the one in his kitchen, he would replace it in the morning when the sun was out. Then the light in his bathroom. And his living room, then his bedroom. 

It wasn’t extremely late, but there wasn’t any sun to light that reached his flat at this time of night so only his phone torch and the light in the hall were providing light.

Jon’s timing was the absolute worst. If Martin didn’t know there was a literal monster that fed off fear of dark places, this would’ve been an annoyance at most. ‘All lights going out at once, what a pain’ it could’ve been. But no. Now Martin couldn’t help but wonder if he was going to get eaten by some stupid fear thing. 

Martin wasn’t even scared of the dark. 

Then there was a knock at his door, and despite his lack of fear, his blood ran cold. 

He inched his way over, it was too hard to see through the peephole, or it should’ve been. But there were two glowing eyes staring back at him.

Martin opened the door and punched whatever was standing at his door.

\---

Jon paced his kitchen anxiously looked at his phone every few moments. “It’s been an hour.”

“I’m sure he is fine. Might be the sort who likes to have their breakdowns in private?” Gerry nibbled on some leftovers he grabbed from Jon’s fridge. 

“I don’t want him to have a breakdown. But I feel like he needed to know, since this is something he is stuck doing?”

“I can’t say if you made the right call, honestly he was taking it better than you did. You were a mess.” 

“Yes. I’m still not ‘okay’ with it all. I just always knew something was out there, I’m just more informed. I can’t look the other way anymore.” Jon sent another text while barely looking at his phone. “Martin didn’t seem to have any sort of connection. I’m seriously doubting Elias when he said he only hired people who’ve had encounters.”

“You should doubt Elias-”

“So you’ve told me, he has proven to be rather-” Jon interrupted.

“Yes I know. You’ve told me he has been helpful and all that.” Gerry interrupted back. “But something is off about him. That he is acting as your personal mentor is unsettling for many reasons, -let me finish my thought-” Gerry held up his hand to stop Jon who looked like he had things to say. “I’m staying you should be cautious, but I don’t think he was lying about it being on the job qualifications. Martin dances pretty close to the Lonely.”

“Christ.” Jon covered his eyes. He’d seen some of the Lonely statements, it was a particularly nasty one from Jon’s perspective. And he knew Martin lived alone. “I’m going to check on him.” 

“Want company? Do you even know where he lives?” 

“No and er no.” Jon was about to say something when his phone went off. He looked to it instantly. “Oh, well now I do. Elias just emailed it to me?”

“Heh, he is such a creep like that.”

“It’s quite odd yeah. He just messaged he felt like I would need this.” Jon was heading to get his shoes on. “Feel free to stay long as you’d like, but lock up if you leave. Just slide the spare under the door.”

“I know the drill. I’ll probably still be here. Your place is much nicer than mine.” Gerry left the kitchen to get comfy on Jon’s couch with netflix as Jon locked the door behind him as he left.

\---

The door opened and a fist went flying towards Jon, knocking him to the ground.

“Christ, Martin!”

“Oh, ooh oh noo ,oh Jon I’m so sorry, I, uh all my lights went out, then the glowing, shit, Jon your eyes are, oh god who are you and what have you done with Jon?” Martin raised his fists in both panic and defense, preparing for whatever was about to happen. “A-are you one of those skin things?”

“I’m-, Martin put your fists down, I’m just Jon, I’ve not been replaced by anything. I felt bad about you being alone so I came to check on you when you didn’t respond to any of the text messages I sent.” Jon held his hands up to try to calm Martin.

“I didn’t-”

All the lights started to flicker before they all turned on. Martin’s phone began to buzz, receiving many messages all at once. 

With the lights on Martin could see a bruise starting to form on Jon’s cheek, the glow from before completely gone. 

“Oh, shit Jon I’m so sorry, I was-” Martin held his hand to help Jon to his face. “I have some ice in my freezer.”

Martin was back to normal Martin. Jon would be lying if he were to say he wasn’t impressed with Martin’s first reaction to punch a monster at his door. Jon knows he wouldn’t be able to do that if it were him. The lights were weird though. Jon hadn’t even noticed them being out until they came on.

“Ice would be nice. Thank you. Could you tell me what happened?”

“Um, well, all the lights went out, save for one. -the one in the hall.” Martin was wrapping ice in a tea towel for Jon and handed it over. “And well, you had told me about the Dark themed things, well Gerry told me that one, but my first thought was ‘oh, all the lights are out at the same time, there can be no mundane explanation’ then when looking out, Jon I don’t want to alarm you again, but is glowing eyes, well, normal for you?”

“No, I can’t say that they are.” Jon held the ice to his face, it helped ease the sting that started to bloom after the initial pain was registering. “That can be a later concern, doesn’t seem as immediate as the power being out in just your flat then coming back on like nothing happened.” Jon let out a little hiss of pain as he shifted the ice. 

“Um, would you like some tea?”

“Yes, if it’s not a bother. I don’t want to blame it on an entity cause there are perfectly reasonable explanations to most things, but I don’t want to brush it off. Seems weird to happen the day of you learning about everything, but well.”

“Weird is what we do.” Martin sounds nervous, but it wasn’t without a bit of humor. Jon couldn’t help but grin at who together Martin was.

“Yes. It is. And one thing both Elias and Gerry have mentioned is after knowing about the fears, attracting them might become a bit more common than not.”

“Right.” Martin continued prepping for tea. Since they weren’t in the breakroom, he wanted to make something nicer for Jon. His tea stash wasn’t full of anything fancy, but it was at least slightly better than whatever was purchased in bulk for the breakroom. 

“So. if it was…” Martin trailed off not knowing a good way to put it that darkness invaded his flat that didn’t make him sound like a Kingdom Hearts character. He wondered if Jon played video games, making a mental note to bring it up sometime. “What would it want by turning off my lights? Just a little introduction maybe? A ‘welcome to the scary side of reality’ present no one asked for?”

“No idea. I’m still new to most of this. Could ask Gerry, but I feel like this might not be a bad thing to figure out for ourselves?”

“We are asking Gerry, Jon. I don’t see why you are so eager to wander blindly when you could just ask for help.”

Jon nodded. What Elias had told him about asking for help could do more harm than good, had Jon hesitating. He’d been slightly conditioned to not ask for help a long time ago, so Elias’ advice tended to make more sense right from the get go. That and he didn’t want his friendship with Gerry to be a constant asking for detailed explanations. 

“Right. Would you like to head over to my place once we finish up with tea?”

Martin felt butterflies. “Sure, but we could just call him here. I think whatever happened is over?”

“Huh? I was just thinking we could talk to him in person since he is probably still on my couch watching something stupid and messing up the algorithms on my netflix account.”

The butterflies were gone. Gerry was at Jon’s on a weekday. “Oh, yeah we could do that. Probably would be good. Yeah.”

“Something wrong?”

“No, why would anything be wrong? I just feel bad about imposing.” 

“Don’t. Take a lesson from Gerry. He is always coming by my place and stealing my food. I’m seriously worried he doesn’t actually have any food at his place.” 

“So, if I start taking notes from him, you will need to stock up on double of everything or might set up a resource war in your fridge.” 

Jon let out a tired laugh. “I should probably prepare for that then.” 

\--

“So, thinking dark attack might be more likely than not. It probably would’ve happened regardless of today’s talk.” Gerry was curled up on one end of Jon’s couch while Martin took the other. Jon was at his coffee table, face glued to his laptop. 

“Why target Martin?” Jon sounded frustrated.

“I’m not them, but my best guess would be that it’s a mix of Gertrude found something, and since she is practically untouchable for many reasons, I’m very elusive, and you reek of Beholding, Martin would be considered the only assistant that they could send a message through? Their patron doesn’t gift them with information, so they probably picked him based on old information that he was clueless.” 

“Great. Is this going to keep happening after Gertrude messes with anyone?” Martin was a mix of anger and regret, but he didn’t appear to be scared. Jon was impressed. 

“If you tackle them like you did me, I don’t think there is much for you to worry about.” 

“Gosh I’m still so sorry about-”

“Stop. Really, I don’t say that out of spite or anything. It’s nice to know you aren’t defenseless after I dragged you into this mess.” 

“You didn’t drag him into it, that would be Elias.” Gerry pointed out. “So, how about this, rather than playing blame game back and forth between us, cause fact of the matter you bumping into me started all this, we all agree to blame it on Elias and move on. Deal?”

Martin nodded. “I’m game for that. Jon?”

Jon could actually blame the web, but he didn’t want to share that so he nodded. “Yes. Seems like a good solution for dragged who.” 

“Good. Should anyone break that oath, I will personally find the grossest item in Artifact storage and let it make claim on your desk.” 

“Do you even have access to it?” Martin raised a brow. 

“There isn’t a door that could stop him.” Jon chuckled out. “Anyway. Back to matter at hand. The Dark. What could it possibly want with us?”

“They got a ritual coming up, chances are they were trying to upset Gertrude if she is getting too close or being a pain or something? I sent her a message, but not sure when or if I’ll hear back. They probably buggered off when Jon showed up.”

“Can they just do that though, kill the lights like that?” Martin didn’t like the thought of someone hanging out near his place with a remote on/off switch to his lights. 

“Maybe? I don’t know what each Entity gifts their followers. Gertrude or Elias would be better to ask about that.” Gerry just shrugged.”You having any luck with the internet?”

“Define luck?” Jon turned the laptop to show the other two. “The people’s church has a website, but it’s hard to figure anything out about it’s members or locations, or if it had anything out of the ordinary. There is a community newsletter but that's about it for communications.”

“You gunna sign up for it?” Gerry teased, while fully expecting Jon to have. 

“Of course I did. I used one of my extra email accounts. What? I know better than to use my own email when gathering information.” Jon defended himself from the looks they both gave him. It was one of the first things Sasha had taught him about gathering information. She had tried to teach him more about digging for information online, but it turned into he would send things her way for help. 

“Anyway, only email I’ve gotten was something of a ‘welcome to the cult’ that had a location and date.” Jon turned his laptop back around to keep doing whatever he was up to. 

“One that you aren’t going to take advantage of? Jon. You aren’t going to go to the location of the creepy church cult.” Both Tim and Sasha had warned Martin that Jon was eager. He understood what Tim meant now when he’d told Martin he would know when Jon was about to pull a dumb move when he saw it. Martin saw it. 

“They were probably being creepy outside your place, I just want to take a look around and see if they are a threat.” Jon wasn’t brave, but he was angry, and maybe protective. Also very impulsive. Mostly impulsive in this case. 

“Want company? Been a while since I did anything not book related. If we go a day or so before we can scope out the place.” Gerry added in.

Jon went to open his mouth but was cut off by Martin. “No, that is beyond not safe. Neither of you can do this!”

\---

The three of them were walking up to an old, seemingly abandoned building, each with a torch in hand and few extra’s each. 

“I hate you both.” Martin was least happy.

“You didn’t have to come along.” Jon snapped. 

“Yes I did. You are both being reckless and I wasn’t about to sit at home wondering if you were ever going to come back.”

Jon froze. “Why would you do that?”

“Shit, Jon do you really think I wouldn’t- you know what. Never mind. Let's go see whatever you need to see then go back to your place and get takeaway.” 

“It’s not like there should be anyone here. The time in the email isn’t for days from now.” Jon tried to plead his case. 

“Fine. But did we have to do it at night?”

Both Gerry and Jon stopped and kinda had this look that neither even thought to come by in the daytime. 

“What the- Are you kidding me? You both-?” Martin was less enthused than before.

\----

Everything went too dark the moment they entered the room in the back of the building. All the torches stopped working and Jon was hit with the worst pain he’d ever felt right behind his eyes. If it weren't for the fact he was able to think, he would’ve guessed he fainted. But this wasn’t fainting. It was he couldn’t see. He could feel his body, he could still hear the other two trying to get their torches working. Jon was certain he was still standing. 

But it hurt. 

He couldn’t even make a sound. He reached to his face, on reflex really, to try and ease the pain, and there was something on it. Something wet, but not like tears he was pretty sure should’ve been there. Jon was certain after a moment he wasn’t feeling it with his hands, but it was more he knew it was there. 

A thought sparked and Jon didn’t have the mental clarity to question where it came from. He lifted the torch to his face and turned it back on. 

There was a loud sound that could be called a screech, maybe, that was accompanied by a blinding light. His eyes refocused and the pain vanished. 

“Flash your torches light into your eyes. There is something on them.” Jon called out, his voice sounding strained from his thoughts resettling in his own head. 

“Shit” “Ew” Both Gerry and Martin did just that and a black liquid dropped from their faces. 

“Alright, time to go.” Gerry grabbed the other two and dragged them from the room. 

Jon took one more look into the room and the ceiling was dripping the black liquid. Jon’s attention was fixed on it until Gerry pulled them both far enough away he couldn’t make it out from the normal darkness of the building.

\--

Once outside with some distance between them and the building, they stopped under a street light. “What was that, is it off??” Martin was rubbing his eyes often. 

“Yes. The light should’ve taken care of it.” Jon was looking up, noticing that there were more stars than he normally should be able to see. It was pretty.

“No more field trips for a while. This was, not the smartest…” Gerry leaned on the lightpost. “I should’ve known better. Why didn’t i-” Gerry mumbled under his breath till Martin interrupted. 

“Shit, Jon your eyes again.” 

“Oh.” They must be glowing. “That makes sense…” Jon’s voice had a tinge of dread to it. 

Gerry cursed under his breath. “Not the first time?” 

“No, it ah- it happened when the Dark was at Martin’s flat few days ago. Everything is bright out like it was then. Not bright enough like it’s day, but enough that I can See.“

“That's unfortunate. Nothing to do about it now though. Try to turn it off before we reach people. I don’t know about you both, but I could eat a pound of whatever is still open.” Gerry stretched and started walking back to town. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> \---
> 
> Beholding: Where did my boy go?! It’s too dark! *floods with so much information till needed information of ‘shine light in eyes’ surfaces*  
> Jon: ow.
> 
> \--  
> Cw: accidental punch, some canon typical Dark stuff(both dark goo and just dark spookiness), implied bad adhd coping methods around asking for help,
> 
> okay, so I might have pulled the ‘they said they weren’t gunna do a thing, than did it in the next scene’ cliche. I just really love that sorta shift >w<) it makes me giggle everytime. 
> 
> also moody/jealous Martin makes me happy. cause he is 100% jealous of Gerry while fond of him from all the interactions in the archives since they meet. 
> 
> Hope everyone is well and staying safe~
> 
> edit: dumb thought about the title. Would the song "when the lights go out" be the dark avatar's jam?


	10. deck the halls in eyes

Turned out whatever was in their eyes, courtesy of Dark horrors, stained. Not only were their shirts basically ruined, save for Gerry cause his was black to begin with, the liquid drained from their eyed just enough they looked like they had been crying with mascara on. 

“I dunno Jon, You really pull off the whole ‘dark and gloomy’ look. You ever think about giving eyeliner a try?” Martin was trying to distract from knowing his face got the worst of it. He’d seen his reflection when they got on the tube and it reminded him quite a bit too much of his early 20’s when he was trying out different images for himself. 

“Been there, done that.” Jon grinned while not planning to elaborate past that.

“Jonathan ‘hates fun’ Sims wore makeup? I need pictures.” Gerry poked at Jon. 

“I’m sure there are photos someplace, I’d probably have to contact some uni friends to see if they got some.”

“Could you paint us a picture? More goth or punk? Oh or scene maybe?” Martin tried to picture all of them. 

“Oh, um, probably more punk?” Jon tried to think best way to share as little detail. There wasn’t embarrassment per say, but Jon felt a little on the spot.

“Probably? Jon, there has got to be more details than that. Was it like a one-time thing or something?” 

“Ah, um well, it wasn’t like it was a one-time thing, but I certainly stopped dressing like it before I got my job at the institute. It wasn’t like a full-on clean out my closet sort of deal, more of I slowly started replacing clothes until only a shirt or two was left, let alone a whole outfit.”

“That makes sense. I tried a few things out myself, but between dress code and bills, I didn’t stick with it too long.” Martin smiled. “I still got some cool jackets though.” 

Gerry laughed. “Man, to think you both only had phases, what nerds.”

“Coming from the goth?” Jon raised a brow. 

“Yup. You’re both nerds. I don’t make the rules.”

\----

Martin sat in Jon’s living room, wearing Gerry’s clothes, while Jon was taking his turn at the shower.

They didn’t talk about what had happened like they’d planned. After eating, they each took turns with the shower, trying to get the black stains off their face. Luckily soap did the trick and wasn’t some sort of weird cursed stain.

Gerry passed out on the couch so ultimately didn’t contribute to much of anything going on, leaving Martin to sit with his thoughts. 

Martin fixated on the fact that Gerry had clothes at Jon’s place. He didn’t want to intrude, but it bothered him more than he’d liked that Gerry and Jon might be a thing? Who keeps a semi stocked wardrobe of their friends clothes at their place? Was that a friend thing or a boyfriend thing? Martin sat flustered as he had very little experience with both as an adult. 

After Jon returned all cleaned up he asked Martin for his clothes and tossed them with his own into the kitchen sink to let them soak and try to get the stains out. Martin was impressed that Jon knew how stains worked after Jon spent a good 15 minutes explaining how dying fabric and stains were similar and the benefits of cold water versus warm water. 

“I’m rambling aren’t I?”

“I don’t mind. It’s pretty neat, I’ve never really thought of how colors gets into the fabric, and like why it says that way.” Martin was boiling some water for tea, since the only other drinks Jon had were water and a handful of energy drinks. “Did you just read about it?”

“Oh, no. I used to dye all my clothes black when I was younger. I used to get a lot of second hand things, so I would dye them myself if they were too faded or if I stained them from one of my excursions when I was bored.” 

“Is that why you don’t really wear black anymore?”

Jon paused and looked puzzled. “I’d never noticed that.” 

Martin panicked slightly as maybe he was paying too much attention, and Jon would think he was creepy for noticing-

“It’s not intentional at least, but probably. Either that or I don’t like the darker colors that are available in shops. I just kinda grab whatever I like while shopping. Not that I do it often.”

\----

“I see you’ve been busy making progress in the archives.” Gertrude was back and she entered the archives from the main door for once. Jon was fairly certain it was the first time he saw her use that door. 

Jon held back a ‘no thanks to you’ that lingered on his tongue. “Yes. Martin’s been helpful. How was your trip.” 

“Hmm.” She walked over to the piles were Jon and Martin had been sorting the truth and fiction, only to see more piles than she was expecting, labeled ‘disproved’, ‘proven but by science’, ‘Smirke related categories’, and ‘other storing required’. “Mind me asking why you are sorting them this way?”

“Right. Well, after looking into the topics, Martin and I figured that it would be rude to label everything not dealing with the dread powers as fake, since some things that scare people aren’t completely false even if they aren’t preternatural incidents. So the two piles dealing with more mundane things will be in one area, while the other two will be secured a little more to keep random people from stumbling where they shouldn’t. Seemed like it’s not a bad idea to add a little more clearance like how artifact storage manages. I sent an email explaining it in more detail since you were away.”

Gertrude was looking through the piles, and it concerned her how well they were sorted. 

Jon paused for a moment as though he heard something that wasn’t said before he continued. “We’ve figured out a fairly reliable system to sort them. To save time, rather than just investigating them, we try to record them, and if they cause an error, we toss them into the Smirke labeled pile. That way we don’t have to exactly read them all way through each time.” 

Gertrude raised an eyebrow. 

“What, you were curious how we were sorting them. I think it was a practical approach.” Jon looked a little offended.

“Right. Well wonderful work. I’ll be remaining for a while so I’ll be able to take over the Statement taking for now. If you will excuse me.” Gertrude moved to her office and closed the door. After that small interaction, she regretted leaving Jon alone with Elias for as long as she had. Something about the spark in Jon’s eyes worried her.

\---

Gertrude remained in the archives for the next month actively watching Jon and Martin undo her years of work with frustration.

\---

“Statement of Dave Davidson about the-” Jon sighed. “the day he saw mommy kissing Santa Claus- how the-” Jon looked at the laptop with a baffled expression as it displayed the error message that came with all the entity touched statements.

“Oh wow, I would’ve bet money on that one being a hoax or prank from the tagline alone.” Martin leaned over from his desk after hearing the telltale beeps. 

Jon shrugged and skimmed over the statement. “From the way it’s written, it sounds like they think it’s a joke too, listen to this line: ‘that man was clearly not my father, but who else could it have been. I know Santa is a tall tale.’ Then continues rambling bout how it had to be his father. Oh. So there are notes. Apparently, someone named Fiona recognized the man so she did some research using his real name.” 

Jon handed it over to Martin to look at. “Ew, that's rather distasteful. His father died when he was way too young to leave a statement?” 

“It probably started as a prank, but the archives brand of needing to know cursed knowledge probably pulled the true story out of him…”

“It did. I remember that one.” Gertrude came up from behind them. “He ended up leaving rather spooked and avoided me at parties for the next few years till he stopped attending altogether. My impression of it back then was that it was probably the Spiral more than Stranger like it might seem on the top. Truth be told he didn’t even remember what he said the statement was about when I’d ask. Just said he made some things up on the spot and couldn’t remember.”

Jon stared at it for a moment before putting it back into it’s folder and handed it to Martin who filed away the research. “I’ll look into it once we start sorting the statements more by entity, but I’ll keep it in mind.”

“Lovely. I also came out to ask you two to keep an eye out for statements dealing with the Stranger. I’d like to keep watch on them if possible, but don’t go messing with them like you did the People’s Church. Less people walk away from encounters with them.” 

Jon scowled a little while Martin nodded. “Understood. No poking the dangerous monsters out in the world.”

“Though in our defense, we went the day before the meeting time. There shouldn’t have been anything there.”

“And you both lucked out there was nothing there. I’m not here to babysit you from getting into danger, but going in with no information is foolish.” Gertrude didn’t know why she started to care. After Gerard had told her about their encounter, she found herself not worried, but concerned about Jon’s tendency to attract attention. From what she observed since Jon showed up, Gerard seemed to click almost instantly with him, Martin was getting on quite well even if he was always the agreeable sorts while he was in the library, and even Elias seemed to be investing time. 

Thus she felt warranted in that her growing concern, his lack of charisma yet ‘everyone notice me’ presence should be something to consider a threat. So she started doing what she did with all threats, and observed them.

\---

After Gertrude started to observe Jon, she compiled a few main points. 

1\. People seemed to want to help him, no matter how prickly he acted with them.   
2\. He seemed to attract the attention of all the entities, with many of them not even actually iterating with him. She’d seen the Distortions door around Jon the most, without Jon seeming to notice it.   
3\. The Beholding has it’s teeth in him deep enough she was no longer worried about the Web. He was Knowing things without noticing. They were all mundane things no one who wasn’t looking for it would notice.   
4\. He was gaining power without feeding the Beholding in a way she could notice. It confused her since Gerard had mentioned a period of time when Jon seemed to be compelled to read statements and she was seeing none of that. She speculated that maybe Jon’s organizing the archives was enough that the Eye didn’t actively demand him to feed. 

One thing she was tempted to make a point of, but it remained as something she couldn’t quite narrow down was how Jon seemed to lead people to encounters. The Eyes normal MO was to watch as people stumbled onto what they shouldn’t, but Jon didn’t quite do that. He researched and dug for information. Hell, even Gerard got careless around Jon, as proven from their run in with the Dark. 

Gertrude hesitated to make a point of it because of how overtly sinister that would be. Not manipulating actions like the Web, but to lead them to danger to observe the fear? Was that was Elias was seeing in Jon? She wouldn’t ask Elias of course, so it was just speculations. 

She kept it in mind, and tried to figure out a way to see if it was the case or not.

\-----

Jon was almost certain that Gertrude was watching him. And by almost, he was. He’d caught her having lunch at the same place as he, Tim and Sasha had been the other day, watching them. Tim laughed that it’s not like she couldn’t have lunch there when he mentioned it, but Jon just Knew he was being observed. He didn’t push the thought on Tim or Sasha and just tried to enjoy the lunch break. 

Then things on his desk were moved another day, though he had a hard time pinning that completely on Gertrude since one of his pens was a different color than normal. It confused him cause it still had the bite marks the same way, but he was certain the that pen had been blue and not red. The ink was still black so that was good. He wasn’t sure why he knew that was something that could be considered good? Jon didn’t think that hard on it.

It wasn’t till the weekend after he noticed it that he brought it up with Gerry. 

“I think Gertrude is stalking me.” Jon was laying on the floor of his flat staring at his ceiling while Gerry was painting his nails.

“She probably is.” 

“Great. Any idea why?”

“Hmm, I’d say maybe a mix of she is your boss, and that you have meetings with Elias who is basically her nemesis. You are earning yourself baby super villain vibes from her point of view.” Gerry blew on the nails he just finished. 

“I’m not- Elias isn’t- Well he is-”

“Besides you stalked her for a little while?”

Jon let out baffled noises. “I wasn’t-- it was- How did you-?”

Gerry let out a snort. “I saw your notes on my first weekend over. You seemed to make some valid points. You basically figured out I was helping her, and she was hiding a world of fear from you. Think the only thing on there that didn’t seem to have valid points was that you never saw her leave. She’s used the door plenty of times while I was around.”

“Thanks for clarifying.” Jon’s tone was as dry as could be. “I don’t like the thought of her watching me.”

“Is there anyone you like the thought of them watching?” Gerry leaned over, anchoring himself carefully without getting the wet polish on Jon’s couch. 

Jon paused for a moment but it was enough for Gerry to grin. “Oh, there is someone you want to watch you.”

“No. I was just giving it a thought. But there is no one. I don’t- It’s not a comforting feeling. Why I dropped Drama all those years ago. Everyone always wanted me to play a leading role but I was no good at it.” 

Gerry leaned back to make sure he didn’t lose his grip and crush Jon. “Stagefright and having someone’s attention are two very different things.” 

“I suppose?”

Their conversation took a different turn from there, but Jon’s thoughts lingered on why he paused. Martin’s face popped up for a moment in these thoughts, as did something he could give less shape to and couldn’t name.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> \---
> 
> Jon: Morning.  
> Gertrude: Morning. Have a nice weekend?  
> Jon: I did. Thank you for asking.  
> Jon: //consults his Gertrude conspiracy board app from his desk//  
> Gertrude: //consults her Jon conspiracy board app from her office//
> 
> \---  
> happy holidays all!
> 
> it's not holidays in the fic, but it being posted on xmas I feel should wish everyone a something~
> 
> Chapter related notes:  
> Punk Martin is something I stumbled on and I love it. So yeah mostly in the winter cause leather jackets are too hot for summer time. Once there is a season shift in the fic, gunna be seeing some Jon pining for Martin in leather Jacket. 
> 
> Also not sure if it will come up in fic any time cause I tend to not really write coming outs? but feel like its important to point out, Gerry is ace/aro in this one


	11. oops

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I’m sorry. And this is long chapter
> 
> Content warnings are in the end notes

“He emerges from the dungeon at last!” Tim shouted across the room from his desk as Jon entered the Research department. 

“Dude Tim, did you need to yell?” Sasha laughed from seeing the look on some of the other researcher’s faces. 

Jon walked over before responding. “Yes, I know. I’m still technically in this department-”

“Suuure, you are just having so much fun in the spooky dark with all the old tales of horror.” Tim wiggled his fingers for spooky effects.

“I’m- yes, you know. It’s quiet down there. Compared to the noise you are always making.” There wasn’t any real spite behind Jon’s works as a smirk grew on his face. 

“Pfft, he’s got you there.” Sasha handed a file to Jon with a nod.

“You wound me.”

“I’m sure you can heal through it.” Jon was flipping through the file before taking his place at his desk. 

The guy next to Jon, who Jon doesn’t seem to ever recognize, leans in. “It’s good to see you back. The last people to work down there went missing around the same time. All three of them in a week or so. I was certain you would be next.”

“I’m quite fine down there.” Jon turned back to what he was going to be helping Sasha with. “It’s just normal organizing while Gertrude does whatever it is she does.”

“Right, well, that's good to hear. ” The man went back into his own work. Something Jon couldn’t put his finger on about that man. Jon was certain that he didn’t know him, but he knew that they had been working together for years. Sent a shiver down his spine thinking about how Stranger sounding that was. 

The world wasn’t that small was it? Only like 2% of the world’s population even had minor interactions with fears, Jon couldn’t be so unlucky he would just passively be bumping into them even before knowing the details as he did now. A spark of paranoia flared when his coworker smiled at him. 

“Jon, you okay?” Sasha tapped Jon on the shoulder. 

“Yeah, um, why?”

“You were spacing and just staring at nothing for like 5 minutes. Did something happen?”

“Oh, no, just got lost in my own thoughts a bit there. So about this follow-up.” Jon continued to talk with Sasha about the details in the statement they were working to verify facts on. 

He Knew the statement in his hand was credited and true encounter. He still tended to hope he was wrong when testing them, but with enough interactions over the last few months, his accuracy had only been increasing. 

\---

Jon knows it should bother him how much the Beholding seemed to latch onto him. He’d been tracking what all was going on, and it really seemed rather passive unlike some of the things Gerry had explained to him. Heck Gerry even pointed out to Jon that the Beholding gave Gerry the knack for being able to see how entities left marks. 

Jon’s things seemed even more passive than that. Able to tell which statements were true at a glance, which had been making sorting easier by presorting piles before testing them all, didn’t seem all that bad as things went? 

The only downside was that since the People’s church incident, he could see in the dark as though it was day. That made Jon’s already terrible sleep schedule worse. Sleep masks were even more ineffective than turning the lights off, because he found that if he covered his eyes, his view would somehow shift and he would see the room from a different angle. 

Jon hadn’t told anyone about that, not even Gerry. It wasn’t that he was scared, except in all the ways he was, it was more that how would he explain it? Blindfolding himself only made it so he could see more? How could that make any sense? 

It didn’t.

Jon sat in his room looking at the facemask he had wasted money on trying to get some help with sleeping. If he wasn’t going to sleep, might as well test what was happening. Maybe share some results once he had more information collected.

He closed his eyes and put the blindfold on, and without barely a second of lack of sight, he could see his room again as though there weren’t even a mask. The angle he was seeing from was wrong. Jon moved his hand around trying to see it, and jumped when he did. Removing the mask without moving his hand, his hand was held out just above his phone’s camera. 

Jon’s mind went blank for a moment before it felt like a dam in his mind broke while he tried to process what he was seeing. He grabbed for his phone-

Martin was sitting in a chair next to his bed. Jon didn’t have a chair in his room? Jon blinked and took in the room. It wasn’t his room, it was a hospital room?

“Martin?”

“Jon?! Oh god Jon.” 

“Why am I?” Jon tried to sit up before Martin stopped him. 

“Don’t try to move too much. Let me get the doctor.” Martin went to move but Jon reached out to him. 

“Wait, what happened.”

“I’m not going far. Just the other side of the bed to page the doctor.”

“Oh..I thought you were going to leave…” Jon let out a heavy sigh. His whole body hurt, but his head was-

“I’m not going anywhere.” Martin put his hand on Jon’s where he’d grabbed his shirt. “You didn’t show up for work and weren’t responding to messages or calls. So Gerry went to check on you, and-” Martin’s voice got a little uneven. “And he found you on the floor of your room unresponsive. So here we are.” Martin let go of Jon to make his way to the com to call in the doctor.

“How long was-” Jon got cut of by a stranger coming in rather quickly. 

“Hello Mr.Sims. I’m glad to hear you are with us. Mr.Blackwood, if you would wait out-”

“Could he stay?” Jon didn’t want to be alone, as his mind started to clear up, something felt wrong. Martin was wearing Snow boots. Fall was coming but it was too early for snow. It was too cold in the room. “Only if you want to stick around I mean.”

Martin nodded to the Doctor and she let out a hesitant sigh. “Alright. Lord knows he’s been here more often than not anyway.” 

“I’m going to check your vitals and while I do that, I’m going to need you to talk to me. You can tell me just about anything, or the last thing you remember. Just try to keep coherent sentences for me.” She was being very gentle with him as she grabbed the clipboard and started to write down numbers. 

“I was in my room, getting ready for bed...Then I was here.” Jon left out the fact he could see his hand through his phone camera. He would fill in Martin and Gerry about that later. “Right before, my head hurt a bit, but that all…Um, how long?”

“Let’s not rush things. It’s been a while, but it’s important that you stay calm. Can you do that?” She finished recording his vitals. 

Jon nodded. 

“First off I’m impressed how alert you are. That is a good sign. Second, you’ve been in our care for almost 4 months now. We ran several tests, and far as we could tell, there was no damage to your brain or any long term complications from the blood loss. The scars on your hand are likely to fade over time, but you might have some trouble with stiffness.”

Jon looked to his hands for the first time, and his right hand had multiple scars that weren’t there before. It looked like he was stabbed?

“Your phone shattered in your hand when Gerry got there.” Martin added to the conversation. 

“Oh, That makes sense I guess.” Jon opened and closed the hand before resting it in a loose fist. “Good thing that I kept my phone backed up. I’m assuming I’ll be needing to get a new one. If the shattered screen didn’t do it in, I’m sure blood would’ve.” Jon suddenly Knew from looking at the scar on his thumb. “I’m surprised I didn’t bleed to death…it must’ve just missed the vein.” 

The doctor smiled. “We were just as surprised. The vein wasn’t missed but you were a stubborn one it seems.” 

“Oh.” Jon didn’t know what to do with that, so put that into a for later pile. 

“Yes. If your brother hadn’t found you when he did, it might not have been the same story.” 

Jon was about to question who the brother was when the Beholding provided play by play knowledge of how the morning had gone. 

[ _Gerry entered using the spare key, found Jon laying on his bedroom floor in a puddle of a mixture of drying and yet wet blood. A call, paramedics rushing in, Gerry claiming he was family at the front desk, him making a call to Sasha for help with planting the right paperwork, Martin rushing into the waiting room. Then weeks. And weeks of visits. A News Years celebration later_.]

“Mr.Sims, I need you to breathe with me now. In and out. Slowly.” The doctor’s voice was calm yet demanding as Jon realized the machines started to beep and Jon was holding Martin’s hand tightly. 

“Are you with me Mr.Sims?” 

“Y-yes. Sorry. I a-”

“No need to be sorry. Just focus on breathing. If those vitals pick up like that again, we will have to take measures, and you’ve been doing so well.”

“Right. I’m good. I just- it’s a lot to take in.”

“It can be. I’ll leave you be with Mr.Blackwood while I contact your brother so you can have a quick moment to breathe. I’ll be right back. The call button is right there should anything happen.” The doctor took her leave.

Jon let out a breath and looked to Martin. “Oh, sorry!” Jon noticed he was still holding onto Martin’s hand and pulled away.

“Don’t worry about it. I’m glad you are awake. It’s been not great…”

“I’m sorry. I can’t imagine how hard the last four months have been.”

“It’s, well better now. One less thing to worry about.”

“While one less thing, I’m- There is a lot more-” He let out a laugh that wasn’t the kind of haha funny type. “It would probably get me admitted longer if I said it in earshot of a doctor.”

“Oh definitely. So probably best she doesn’t know?” Martin nodded. “We are going to need to get you a bodyguard at any rate.” 

“No bodyguard could handle protecting me. I’m a walking danger magnet”

“That isn’t something to be proud of. But maybe I’ll take up the challenge then. Gerry’s been showing me some things to help my chances in the archives.”

“I think that would be nice.” 

\--

Gerry was there within the hour and threw a phone at Jon. “Welcome to the waking world sleeping beauty. The phone’s got your sim card in it so enjoy text spam from Tim and Sasha. I let them know you woke up on my way here.”

“Nice to see you too.” Jon was sitting upright and poking at the hospital food that was brought in. Not a lot of solids, and none of it looked appetizing. 

Gerry grabbed the spare chair and sat on it backwards. “I’m not good at the mushy stuff. They told me with some tests, you should be out of here in a week if things look good. You are going to probably need some physical therapy too. And I’m not letting you skip them.”

“Right, cause a big brother’s gotta hold up his job. How they even believed that-”

“I’m convincing. Sasha helped. You know she is very good with computers?”

“I’m aware. I’ll have to thank her.”

“Also helped that your emergency contact was chill and backed me up to buy Sasha some time..”

“My- Oh god I never changed that from Georgie.” Jon hid in his hands. That couldn’t have been a good phone call to get. He could just picture the call, Hello Ms.Barker, we have a Jonathan Sims in a coma, you want to make medical choices for him?

“She is a cool one. Very good at going with the flow.”

“You’ll need to fill me in once I’m discharged. I’ll need some time to make a proper apology for your actions.” Jon unlocked the new phone and started to text people while chatting. Tim and Sasha were getting standard ‘sorry for worrying you, I’m doing okay. See you at work in a week or so.’ and Georgie got a ‘sorry I left you as my emergency contact. Thank you for helping Gerry.’

“Rude, I was nothing but pleasant. She is a riot. Her podcast is pretty good too. It’s classy.” 

“Heh, Yeah. Haven’t talked to her for a long while, but I’ve kept up with it.”

“I’m going to have to invite her to your get well party.”

“Oh christ. No parties. It’s bad enough I fell and couldn’t get back up. Please don’t give opportunities for Tim and Georgie to meet.”

Gerry snorted a laugh while Martin chuckled. 

\---

Visiting hours passed, leaving Jon alone with his thoughts. He shouldn’t feel this good after being in a coma for so long. He felt like he had a good night's rest after his thoughts cleared, even though there was this nagging feeling he couldn't place. It was like Jon needed something, but he didn’t know what. 

He was trying to focus on it, he was so close to reaching a conclusion when his phone went off. It was an unknown number. Jon wasn’t in the mood to talk to Elias. The certainty that it was him didn’t surprise Jon as much as it should. Probably to comment on why Jon went into the coma, or wanting to talk about the effects it had on Jon. 

A small sob got caught in Jon’s throat at that thought. Jon wasn’t certain of all the effects, but he could feel it in his bones he was changed. He wasn’t meant to be this. It felt wrong. He wasn’t ready to admit it aloud. Not yet. He was scared to? No, maybe ashamed? Not that either.

Jon didn’t want to be alone right now. 

So when the phone rang a second time, he answered. 

“Hello.”

“I’m glad to hear about your recovery. It seems you’ve developed some interesting skills.”

“I’m not in the mood Elias…”

“I understand. I have some contacts at the hospital and I could pull some favors to get you discharged without any troubles, only if you would like to be out of there sooner. I’m not rushing you by any means, just offering if you don’t want to. I’m sure you are aware they won't find anything from tests.”

Jon let out a bitter sounding laugh. “Right. It would be nice to go home.” Then he remembered the last image he saw of his room with a cringe. 

“Right. I’ll make some calls. I’ll leave it to you to get someone to bring you winter clothes. Feel free to take some time from work if you need the rest. Your job is beyond secure at this point. Pleasant evening Jon.” 

Elias hung up before Jon could get a word in. So he simply sent a text to Gerry and Martin asking if they could bring him some warm clothes tomorrow.

\----

Gerry and Martin left the hospital together, and remained decently silent for a few blocks. 

“Jon’s eyes are completely green now, huh.” Gerry didn’t look at Martin.

“Mhm. Very green. Still his eyes though. Not like how that fellow we ran into few weeks back looked. Though I guess I can’t say what their eyes looked like before the Hunt.” 

“Probably not golden and bloodthirsty.” Gerry stretched. “That was Jon for sure, Servent of the Beholding or not. I’m guessing Beholding is passive enough it wouldn’t do much to someone so painfully curious. Can’t even guess what could be going on in his head or how it will affect him. Only Servent of the Beholding I’m aware of is Elias and he is just a smug prick. Granted Jon can be a prick, but he is cuddly about it. Though apparently, Elias was a pothead before he joined the Eye's ranks. Maybe Jon will stop smoking?”

“I wish we didn’t need to leave. Jon is probably just stewing in whatever is going through his mind. At least they could’ve let us stay until he fell asleep.” Martin spent so much time there already. Even if they didn’t have limited visiting hours, Gerry was certain that the nurses would’ve kicked Martin out. 

“Only few more days. Then you can go back to forcing him to take his lunches.”

“God, that feels like ages ago.” Martin exhaled a big cloud of relief into the winter air.

\----

Jon spent the night on his phone reading news articles and the sort from while he was out. He couldn’t seem to get any sleep so he gave up. Any time he closed his eyes, rather than sleeping, his vision would jump around different viewpoints in the hospital. People's phone cameras, the security cameras, and what he thinks might have been a false eye? There were also moments he was certain that he was seeing through people’s eyes as well. That was the final straw. It felt like it wasn’t a place he should go, so he stopped. 

Between catching up on news and emails, he checked his bank, Elias hadn’t stopped paying him, and it looks like rent and bills continued as normal through auto pay. He was glad that he didn’t lose his flat. Jon sincerely hoped that Gerry continued to clean out his fridge before things went bad. 

Jon became aware that was the first thing Gerry did. That was going to take some getting used to. Both learning how not to do that, and how to handle when it happened. It was quite the invasion of privacy.

Mobile games took up the rest of his night. Puzzle games were ruined. He could see the answers faster than the programs would keep up. Least the 'success' animations were pleasant to watch before it became more tedious to play. Chess wasn’t all that bad and kept his mind focused on something since he tracked the movements and possible moves. 

3:35am, it was already that early and Jon was bored. He couldn’t even go for a smoke cause of all the machine hookups. At that thought, he could probably quit smoking. His body was 4 months without nicotine so some of the hardest parts were probably over? Did that even matter for him at this point? He could try. Martin didn’t enjoy the smell on him after he would take the breaks.

3:43am. Jon groaned while he looked at his phone. 4% battery with no charger. 

With a sigh, Jon closed his eyes and started to Watch around the hospital. There were very few nice views, but he found he could shift views to the cameras and people on the street. How he could hear noises from both locations didn’t make sense, but he didn’t abide by the same rules anymore. 

He watched a dude walk down the street making robot noises to the beat of some popular song. The dude’s rhythm was a spot on as though he did this often. The man stopped and turned to look Jon right in the eyes, making Jon jump, but he kept Looking. The two stared at each other, when Jon remembered that the man couldn’t see him. Not the same way. The man was just looking at a camera that felt like it was watching him.

Jon looked away and opened his eyes. That man was scared. Information flooded into Jon. His name was Leonard Fox and he was afraid that someone saw that he was making nonsense noises in the dead of night. Nervous that someone would find out that he would take walks lat at night and do this almost to a routine. Sometimes he would get a thrill making noises when people didn’t notice him. Leonard liked to frighten people who walked in the late night. Jon could tell what else Leonard was hiding as well. He had so many secrets that would ruin him. 

Jon bit his lip, and snapped out of it. That feeling he couldn’t place before felt full, and it made his stomach drop.

\---

True to his word, by the time morning came, The doctors were talking about discharging Jon. The Doctor, whose name was Erika Jones, wasn’t all that happy with having to let Jon out of her care.

“I don’t know why my bosses are so eager to discharge you after you’ve just woken from a coma, but I’ve little say in the matter. So I’ve put together some good contacts for you to reach out to, and set up some follow up appointments to make sure you are on a path to recovery.”

“Thank you.” Jon looked at the packet Dr.Erika had given him. “The first page is all psychiatrists? Second and third too?”

“You’ve experienced trauma, even if you don’t feel it now, once it sinks in it might not feel so great. Why we would normally not discharge for at least a week, so we could observe and make sure things go well. But that’s been taken out of my hands.” Dr.Erika looked peeved while still keeping it professional. “I’ve also my office number on the last page. If you need anything, please don’t hesitate. I know the patient-doctor relationship is pretty one-sided since it was me caring for you, but regardless, I would like to make sure your recovery is as smooth as possible.”

“Thank you Dr.Jones. I’m sure I’ll be fine, but I’ll make sure not to miss the appointments.”

Gerry came into the room and knocked on the door frame. “One brother with a bag full of oversized cardigans, courtesy of Martin.” Gerry held up a shopping bag with clothes stuffed in. “You’ve got to get better winter clothes Jon. Your closet was a void.” 

“Oh, right, I had them in storage still…”

“Well, looks like that is my cue. Bring these forms to the front desk when you are ready to go.” Dr.Erika stood up as Jon waved her off with another ‘thank you’ before taking the clothes from Gerry. 

\---

The tube was loud. Louder than normal and not in a way that Jon could plug his ears to. So many people had things they wanted to hide, and Jon could barely hold back picking those secrets. He ended up leaning into Gerry trying to hide, closing his eyes to try and look anywhere else. That was even more disorienting, so he stopped. 

Jon lasted about 2 stops before they exited to let him get a breather. 

Gerry came back with coffee to Jon who was sitting on a park bench staring at the sky.

“How’s the head?” Gerry handed over the coffee. 

“Thanks. It’s clearer now. This is going to be a pain to get used to.” 

“Probably. But you’re stubborn so my bets are on that you will either figure it out, or start sleeping at your desk to avoid the commute.”

“Wow. You really think that was something I considered?” 

“I’m not wrong. So, you in the mood to talk about it?”

“Not really, but I don’t think avoiding it is an option.” Jon took a long sip to avoid the next thing as much as possible. “So I think I died?”

“No shit. I cleaned up your place, but it looked like a murder scene. Did my best, but you’re probably not getting any tenancy deposit back.”

“There has got to be a rule about exemptions for emergencies?”

“I dunno. Never paid one cause my mum owned the place I live.”

“Fair. I’ll look into it later, but I don’t plan on moving any time soon. But yeah, so I died, but I’m not dead.” 

“Yup. Daddy Eye didn’t want to lose you I guess.”

“Yech don’t call the Beholding that. Considering it was the Beholdings fault I died I guess this is the least it could do.”

“Details?”

“Ah, well-” Jon started to fill Gerry in what happened that night with seeing through his camera, then with how he is able to do it still, but by just closing his eyes rather than relying on a blindfold. At some point Jon started to hyperventilate and found himself in Gerry’s arms.

“Hey, Shit sucks. Trust me, being able to peak through cameras is by far the least evil thing I’ve seen.”

“You don’t get it. I- that man when he noticed me, it felt good. I- I fucked up.”

“Won’t say you didn’t, but he was able to walk away, so that's a victory.” 

“Shit Gerry. That's not-”

“Look at it this way, if all it takes for you to pay back the Eye is by making some people feel unnerved, that's not the worst trade off. Martin and I spent a few weekends ago dealing with a man who gave himself to the Hunt, and you’ve read some Hunt statements. They are nasty.”

Jon pulled away. “You and Martin. Took on the Hunt. Why? Did you get hurt??”

“Relax, we’re good. I wanted to get a Leitner and I think Martin was feeling antsy so I let him tag along. He’s got wicked good aim with a crossbow.” 

Jon wished he was there to see that. “I’m glad you were both okay.”

“You might want to talk to him about it. After seeing what the hunt did to the man, he got pretty restless. My guess is that he worried how you would be when you woke up.”

Jon gave Gerry a puzzled look. 

“Cause the whole Beholding thing. I could tell the moment I saw you. Didn’t know how you’d wake up. Oh, I only told Martin. Gertrude doesn’t know about it far as I know. She will notice your eyes, but you could probably get away with not making her monster list.” 

_Monster list_. Jon whimpered a bit at that. He was- A hand grabbing his shoulder and rubbing it lightly pulled Jon out of the thought. 

“Don’t get hung up on it.”

“Right. Yeah.” Jon inhaled. “Right. I think I’m good. A cab’s probably best bet for getting home the rest of the way.“

“I’ll get us one. “ Gerry chugged the last of his coffee and started heading back to the street. 

\---

Jon fell into his couch as Gerry locked the door behind them. 

“Shit. That was terrible. That driver’s wife is having an affair on him with their daughter’s teacher, and he is completely clueless. Thinks their daughter is having problems in school so bad that his wife has to keep going in to talk with the teacher. The poor man is distraught with worry.” Jon was practically yelling into the pillow. 

“Oof, that's pretty bad. Explains the look on your face, why the extra cash for him though? You aren’t the type to give pity money.”

“That was cause he noticed my eyes glowing while I practically picked apart his life without him knowing.”

“Ah, paying for your dinner?” A pillow connected with his face.

“No. Maybe...Shut up. Its not like that.” Jon got a message from Martin asking if he was good for Sasha and Tim to come by with him. They were worried. He sent a quick okay and he didn’t mind. 

“It’s okay if you did. Don’t think the institute pays enough for it to be a good habit.” 

“Hmm no, it doesn’t. And it wasn’t completely that. He was going to be short on his utility bill for the 4th time in a row.” 

Gerry grinned taking his place on the couch. 

“Gerry, he has a little girl. She needs a nightlight.” 

Laughter followed Jon's scowl that lacked actual bite to it. 

“What we miss?” Tim burst through the door. As Martin looked apologetic. 

“Sorry, I got used to letting myself in.” 

Jon shook his head. “Don’t worry about it Martin. Thanks to keeping an eye out on things.” 

For a moment, Gerry, Tim, and Sasha observed the other two lost in their own bubble, separate from their own. Exchanging a grin, Tim interrupted. 

“So, I’d say we order some takeaway and catch you up on some movies you missed out on while napping.”

“It wasn’t-”

“Shhh. It was a nap from your body trying to catch up from all the sleep you skipped out on for the last 50 years of your life.”

“Tim, how old do you take me for?”

“I dunno, 70?” 

“You are off by a few years.”

“Oh dang, you look good for 80.” 

Jon let out some protest noises at Tim as Sasha pushed him aside a bit. “Make room. I’m joining you here.” 

She pulled Jon into a hug when it looked like he was going to give her too much room. “Seriously. You’re not allowed to do that again. I was, we were all seriously worried.” Her hands shook as she held him. 

Jon reached up and hugged her back. “Sorry. I-”

“No sorrys, just take better care of yourself.” The mood in the room dropped quite a bit. “Promise me?” 

“I’ll do my best.” 

“Good. So about that takeaway. I vote for the place down the road cause they have killer drink menu and I doubt you stocked your fridge yet.” Sasha pulled away. Jon noticed her eyes were a little red. Beholding filled in that she had been crying the trip here. That she had been holding it in to keep Tim from dwelling since Tim already lost a- 

Jon shook his head. He wouldn’t Look at them. “Yeah. Um, didn’t even think to stop by the store. Still feels like I just went shopping two days ago.”

“You sound like a shitty time traveler.” Tim took a spot on the other side of Jon. “Tomorrow I can go with you.”

Jon looked confused. “Why would I need you to come with me?”

“Because we are taking shifts watching you.” Sasha smiled. “We made a group chat for it.”

“Watching?”

“Yup. Jon, you left the hospital waaay too quickly. What were those doctors even thinking?? So We are going to make sure someone is with you for a while in case- Well, just to make sure there isn’t any repeats.” Sasha wasn’t giving Jon any room to get another word in. “We are all staying tonight and watching movies until sunrise or whenever we fall asleep.”

“I don’t need you to babysit me. I’m a grown man, don’t I have a say?”

“You don’t.” This time it was Martin. “You just woke up yesterday. We aren’t letting that happen again.”

“Besides, Georgie is in on it too. She’ll be by on Friday and she said she is bringing your son?” Gerry shrugged while the other three looked at Jon as his face lit up. 

“You have a son!?” Sasha looked at Jon with a confused look. It was the first any of them had heard of it. 

“Not like a human son. No. He is a cat.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> \---
> 
> Georgie: Wow Jonathan Sims. Only fellow I know who would apologize for falling into a coma  
> Jon: Fine I’m not sorry?  
> Georgie: better  
> Georgie: //sends picture of the Admiral with his head in a glass licking water  
> Jon: ♥
> 
> \--
> 
> Cw: hospital settings, coma, cuts and blood, Talk of smoking/nicotine, Beholding style lack of privacy.  
> Let me know if I missed anything
> 
> \---  
> Beholding speed run! Clear time 6-ish months if you don’t count the coma time, 10-ish months if you do. If it wasn’t clear, Jon’s phone killed him when he fell. Figure the choice was made the moment he died, the coma was more his body getting used to its new state. Jon isn’t quite the Archivist cause Gertrude is still around, but Beholding is gunna spoil him some. Meta: basically same as archivist but trading Compulsion for some other goodies. (let me know if it's confusing at all) 
> 
> Also wanted to point out quitting smoking is hard so hope it doesn't seem like I was belittling the struggles in Jon's inner monologue. I've never even smoked and the second hand I'd grown up with stills gives me moments when I pass someone smoking.


	12. New normal

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> No content warnings for this chapter other than Elias being Elias.

Jon had his face buried in a purring bundle of fur the moment the Admiral was released from the backpack carrier. It was one of those hard-cased ones that looked like a rocket with a port window. 

“Hey Jon. Glad to see you too.” 

“Georgie. It’s nice-” Jon’s voice was muffled by cat. “It’s nice to see you again.” Jon finally looked up from the cat that was giving just about the same amount of affection. Glancing nervously to Georgie. “You must understand that this is the Admiral though right?”

“I do. The stinky boy has always been your number one. You’re looking much better than I expected you to from what those two had been talking about.” 

“They keep babying me. I’m completely fine.” 

“Says, the recently ex-coma patient. It's a wonder they left you alone.” 

“Got a call from Gertrude about something. Oh Gertrude is our boss. She needed help with something.”

“Ah, demanding boss. Glad I don’t have one of those.” 

“Just those sweet sweet sponsors? What was last week's, something about face mask to ease aging cause never too late to preserve yourself to look good in your afterlife? Or was it the socks that felt nearly invisible but with all the benefits of a sock?”

“Pfft, you got me there. It was the face mask. That was so terrible. The sponsor was a long time fan of the show and wanted to provide a word for word script. I should send you the script. It was so-” She paused to try and find the words. “You remember that creative writing class I took back in Uni and had to read through other people's stories to give feedback?”

Jon nodded. He remembered he would also dramatically read the bad ones so Georgie could get through them.

“It made those seem like works of art.”

“Oh, oh wow. That's bad.”

“I should send it to you, maybe could get a dramatic reenactment for old times?” 

“I could be convinced.” Jon sounded pretty eager after remembering some of the good times. The nervousness he had about her coming over was easing up. 

“Hmm so need a bribe?”

“Admiral time and call it even?” 

Georgie nodded. “You drive a hard bargain Mr.Sims, but think that can be arranged.” 

The relaxed laugh accompanied Jon’s exhale. “I missed you.”

“I missed you too.”

They sat silently for a little bit losing the flow of the conversation they had going. It wasn’t an awkward silence, which Jon was grateful for, but just a comfortable lull in the conversation.

“So, I’m going to raid your fridge for something to drink since you are in no condition to offer.”

“Oh, Sorry I’ll-” Jon looked nervous before Georgie held up her hand. 

“Nope. You got a cat on you. It’s the law you can’t move under any condition. Want anything?”

“No, I’m good I think. Thanks, and help yourself to anything except the energy drinks.”

“Christ, tell me you aren’t drinking them after waking up from a coma.”

“I’m not, it’s been months actually since I last had one.”

“You aren’t allowed to count the time in the hospital.” Georgie called from the kitchen.

“I can to and am counting it.” Jon laughed back. He remembered having one about 3 days ago. 

“They aren’t good for you.”

“They aren’t mine. Gerry drank all the ones I had in stock, and those are his.”

Georgie came back with a glass of some purplish colored juice. Probably one of Martin’s cause Jon didn’t remember getting anything like that and Gerry tended to stick to fizzy drinks.

“Good.” 

The two continued catching up from there. Georgie talked about the podcast and a few terrible dates, also mentioned some things about her family and just random catching up from years of not interacting. 

Jon had quite a bit to talk about, but his side of things were a bit high and low. Things had been rough since they had last talked, but far as Jon was concerned, Georgie didn’t need to know about the rougher patches. He did end up joking about how he basically forced his own promotion into the archives after trying to get information on Gerry. 

“Leave it to you to get interested in someone and proceed to do everything to get close except talk to them.”

“To be fair, I didn’t have Gerry’s contact information. And you’ve met him, so you know he is cool.”

“Yeah. Gerry is 100% the type of person for you to want to hang out with. Same with ‘Mahtin’ though I feel like him entering your focus was a happy accident.” Georgie gave Jon a fond look that made Jon’s thoughts race. Jon hadn’t talked about Martin that much, had he? Sure Martin was-

“I- it’s not like that-“ 

“If I had been keeping track how often you’d brought him up in the last hour, it probably wouldn’t outdo your other friends, but you seem to light up a little bit. Not teasing or anything, and I could be very wrong, but think on it, maybe?” 

“Hm, yes. Maybe. I doubt it would matter anyway.”

She shrugged. “Or it might matter in all the best ways? You know I’m always cheering for you to find someone to be happy with.”

Jon smiled in response. While the break up had been, a Thing, she’d said the same thing back then. Maybe with a bit more frustration behind it, but not a spiteful thing. 

“Now, enough about our lack of dating life-”

“You are avoiding it in other words.” Jon moved a little to regain the feeling in his leg and caused the Admiral to readjust. 

“Thats a way to put it, but you need rest sooo” Georgie reached into her bag and pulled out a laptop. “I’ve got some B movies for you that are hilarious. They are technically supposed to be horror I think? You’re gunna get a kick out of them. The dramatics and effects are truly stellar in them.” Georgie started to give Jon a rundown of 3 movies to pick from. First was about some lesbians who fought of vampires to protect their cat, the second was some teen thriller where the ‘real monster was the friendships they made along way’ in Georgie’s words, and the last was something about sea monsters attacking a boat but then it turned out to be aliens or something. 

Jon ended up picking the middle, though pointed out the others weren’t off the table if the first one didn’t send him back into a coma to escape it. 

The Eye provided Jon with commentary while watching it, some of the effects actually seemed to have been pulled off rather well considering the budget, until the Eye added in the side tidbit of the director was dangerously close to invoking help from the entities for some of the effects. 

About halfway through the movie, the sun was beginning to set, leaving Jon’s new night vision to kick in with a radioactive green glow. It cast the light around the room just enough to be noticed. 

Georgie hit the space bar to pause.

“Jon, your eyes…They are?”

“Oh, Yeah, they do that now. Sorry.” He took a breath and was able to calm the glow down to his new normal level of green, though they still gave off a faint glow. His internal panic kicked up, leaving the only reaction to try to just act like nothing is weird. If he didn’t freak out, she surely wasn’t going to, right?

“Um...They didn’t do that before. Your eyes weren't green before either... That's not- Did the doctors look into why at all? Comas shouldn’t do that. Nothing should? What happened?” Georgie recognized that this was one of those moments she should be scared, but was thankful for Jon’s sake she wasn’t. If he was anything like before, which he seemed to be, one wrong word would get him either into a panicked spiral or cause a complete emotional lock up. 

He took a deep breath seeming to notice the same thing as Georgie. “Would you believe me if I said I probably died and came back not all human?” Jon hoped it was safe to tell her, as a buzz from the Beholding provided the fact that she had reason’s to believe her if he asked. Ignoring that buzz, Jon couldn’t avoid it at any rate. If anything he would feel too guilty not to now that she noticed. If she reacted badly, at least the last hour or so was nice.

“You would get yourself into a mess like that. I’ll need a bit more information, but it’s not outside the reality I’m aware of.”

“You believe me, just like that?” Jon’s eyes literally lit up again, as he forgot to suppress it, needing to See the expressions Georgie was making.

“Not just like that. Details Jon. It's more I don’t doubt you. Yet.” She got up to turn the lights in the room on. Fear or no fear, the room filled with green wouldn’t make the conversation easy. 

“Right, right.” Jon began to fill Georgie in on just about everything that happened over the last year. Why he really wanted to track down Gerry, the junk with the Eye as he understood it, making a point that he didn’t know enough about everything going on. Honestly, it was safer for Georgie to not be filled in completely and she agreed to be okay with vague details. The only thing that Jon left out was his childhood encounter with Mr.Spider, only referencing it as ‘bad encounter with a book, and he needed to know more.’ 

Georgie followed up with a tale of her own to be fair. She confessed about her encounter with the woman in the science lab, which wasn’t told in full statement, but enough that Jon could practically taste it in the air. A foreign whisper in his mind wished to have seen it.

After they both finished, the silence wasn’t a comfortable one. 

“Well, shit. That was a lot.”

“Sure was. Um, I can understand if it’s too much.” Jon was petting behind the Admiral's ears, avoiding eye contact. 

“Nah. I mean yeah, but you got some dramatic ads to read next weekend, I’m not letting you weasel out of it just cause your eyes glow now.” 

“Darn. Guess I’ll have to try harder then if I want to get out of it. Should we finish the movie?”

“Sure. Let me order some takeout real quick then I’ll be good to go with it.” 

\----

Georgie ended up taking off a little after 9pm so she could do some editing. She kept insisting that she could do it there if Jon didn’t want to be alone after all that, least until Martin or Gerry got back from work, commenting how terrible it was to keep them out this long. Jon insisted she head out and he would be fine. 

He’d finally convinced her by saying he wanted to get some rest, he was glad about leaving out that he hadn’t figured out how to sleep yet. 

Once she was gone Jon laid on the couch in the dark. Might as well save on electricity since he could see well enough without.

It was weird. He didn’t feel different. Still got hungry and thirsty the same way. His body was sore from not moving, but it was more like he took too long of a nap on a bad couch and was stiff afterwards. But for all the ways he felt the same, he could recognize the new things. 

Where he had been getting headaches since the Eye apparently started claiming him, it wasn’t a painful pressure anymore. The best way he could figure it, it was like a piercing after it healed. Could feel the bar, but didn’t hurt anymore. It was just there now.

It made him feel odd if he focused too hard, not unlike that weird, unfocused feeling after trying to look at one's own nose on their face. It was Wrong and shouldn’t be there. He didn’t know how to feel those new aspects. There shouldn’t be a buzz of satisfaction when he Knew things, when he Watched. 

Which he was doing at the moment. He peaked out of a gargoyle from a nearby building keeping an eye out for Gerry or Martin before shifting back to himself. 

He curled into a ball on the couch, and stared at the wall. He wanted to close his eyes, but then he Saw too much, but leaving them open felt just like fighting sleep. His entire body felt like it was screaming mixed signals to every cell. 

Logically, Jon realized he was probably having something along the lines of a panic attack, but it was drowned out from a sudden flood of Knowing. He couldn’t decide if the Eye was trying to help, or if it enjoyed his suffering.

The rest of Jon's night was spent in Gerry’s arms after he’d found Jon in bad shape on the couch. 

\---

Jon waited for Elias to finish a meeting in the lobby with Rosie. They did a little bit of small talk, Rosie concerned Jon returning after everything was too soon, and insisted Jon rest more than a weekend after getting discharged. He defected pretty quickly by pointing out he was still taking his leave, and suggested that he was here to discuss a longer away time, which Rosie relaxed to the idea instantly. 

Elias came up from behind them with a smile. 

“Jon, I wasn’t expecting you for another week at least.” 

“I’ll still be taking that time, I had some things I wanted to discuss with you about it.” 

“Something a phone call couldn’t cover?” 

“Er, I don’t have your number. And I was in the area.” 

_The lies you told Gertrude were much better crafted. I Know you didn’t lose any numbers Jon._ Elias sent Jon a thought that made Jon’s eyes widen while trying to process it.

“Good thing I’ve got some time then. Come on in.” Elias opened his office and waited for Jon to enter before closing the door behind them. 

“What was that?” Jon held his head a little. He didn’t like whatever Elias just did. 

“One of my gifts. You seem to be able to receive them now without a problem then? Not everyone can without it hurting them.”

“So you just figured since I’ve become like... you’d test it out?”

“Precisely. Not sure if you will be able to, but couldn’t hurt to try. It actually could’ve, but you know what I mean. I was confident it wouldn’t go poorly.”

Jon didn’t look impressed. He also passively found it curious how quite the Beholding was while he was near Elias. All morning there was a trickle of facts about literally everyone else around him. It was as though they both were the same as normal, same as before. 

“I would like to congratulate you on Becoming. It's not often one is recognized by our Parton to such levels, especially in such a short amount of time.”

“Right. I wanted to ask you something about it, but is...hmm.” Jon seemed to be caught on the words. “I can See through places. Like cameras or other peoples’ eyes. Is that…?”

“Normal. Quite.” Elias smiled. “How do you think I’m so informed about everything that goes on?”

Jon’s stomach dropped. It was Elias Watching that gave this place that feeling? It was only in the moment he noticed he didn’t feel watched. Could Elias not look at him the same way that Jon felt the missing connection while looking at Elias? 

Jon tried to reign in his thoughts. He came with a goal. “Its- Anytime I close my eyes, I see someplace else. I know you are going to say for me to figure it out on my own cause of the ‘learning experience’, but Elias, is there a way to turn to stop so I can sleep….I’ve been trying but I can’t.”

“If you find a way I would love to know. No need to worry about what it’ll do to your body, closing your eyes will still have the same physical effects as sleeping. Watching the outside while you rest will replenish you just as much as any sleep. Like dreaming but I’ve found it's quite the way to feed our patron.”

“...It feels wrong. To watch people go about their day like that.”

“Stop being so dramatic. You will learn to enjoy it once you relax. What choice do you have? Hm?” Elias smiled at Jon, paused for what Jon could figure was only for the dramatic effect. ”Any other skills you noticed other than being able to shift your sight?”

Jon paused for a moment. Unsure if there was something missing, or even what he was being asked. “Ah, no. That’s- it’s the only thing I noticed.” Something about the way Elias was staring at Jon made him feel like he wanted to hide. 

“Shame. I must say I’m rather disappointed that nothing special happened. With the way our patron focused on you, I was expecting a different result.” 

“Pardon?”

Elias let out a pained sign as though repeating what he said was annoying at best. “I was rather curious how fast the Beholding had taken to you, observing first hand and assisting you seemed to be something it wanted. That you woke up with standard abilities was rather anticlimactic I must say. The speed was interesting at least.” 

“What do you-?”

“Jon, I’ve seen a lot in my time here. It’s been a long while since the Beholding took an interest in creating another servant, so I was curious.”

“You were curious...so you what, kept me close to watch?” There was a sharpness to Jon’s tone. “Just something to observe cause you were expecting something?” 

“In not so many words, yes. Not to say that you didn’t do wonderfully in your growth, but any regular involvement at this point from me would be a waste of time. If you require any assistance, I’m still your boss so it can be arranged, but you’ve got plenty of tools that I don’t think you will benefit from our meetings anymore.”

Jon didn’t know what he was expecting, but it wasn’t this. There was no help Elias had to offer him about what he was going through, and if there were, it wasn’t going to be shared at this point. “Right.” 

Elias helped push him into being a monster, then wants nothing more to do with him? How was that fair? Gertrude probably knew about this too. It made sense why she was so hostile to Elias whenever he showed up in the Archives. Jon started cycling through all their past conversations, looked for signs. Jon started focusing on the signs, the flags, before he heard Elias cough lightly. Jon was back in the office, when has he drifted off? “Right. Course. I’ll see myself out then.” 

“I’ll see you next week. Stop by my office when you are going to resume your shifts. One last word of advice, make sure you don’t neglect the Eye. It would be a shame if you starved your connection and withered away.” 

\---

Jon sulked into the archives where Martin was working after his talk with Elias. Originally the plan was to head home and sleep after Elias filled Jon in on the trick to sleeping now, but since that was more or less a bust, he figured there wasn’t a rush. 

Jon silently slumped into the desk next to where Martin was and got a look of concern back from him. “Didn’t go well?”

“No. Not at all. Elias was just, useless? Unhelpful? Full of himself? All this was just him trying to fend off boredom while feeding his creepy god I guess.” Jon gestured to the archives while keeping his head planted on the desk. 

Martin inhales with a slight hiss like he could feel Jon’s frustration. “That’s not good. Did he have anything to say about your sleeping problems.”

Jon exhaled a bitter laugh. “Learn to enjoy it.” 

“Hm, well is it something you think you could?”

“What.“ Jon appeared to almost deflate. That Martin could suggest something like-

“Like, are think there could be advantages to never sleeping? I know you had nightmare troubles, and if you can’t sleep, maybe you could I don’t know, use the time to read something or watch movies?” Martin looked over the statement in his hand trying to figure out if it was bogus or not. 

“That's a true statement, Buried.” Martin mumbled a 'thanks' as Jon continued. “I guess I could try it? He said something about using the time to Feed the Beholding?”

“Maybe put on a horror movie?” Martin was trying but it just made Jon frustrated. 

“That wont- Christ Martin, I’d run out of them in a month or so even if I tried that. The human mind isn’t supposed to process being awake 24/7.”

Martin shrugged. “You might be exempt from it? You’ve already broken your record, it’s been what?”

“5 days now.” 

Martin went to say something when Gertrude’s door opened and she walked out. “Jonathan, you aren’t supposed to be back yet.”

“I’m not.”

She raised an eyebrow at him. “Much often Gerard is here in his free time, this isn’t a place to hang out. I would appreciate it if you didn’t pick up the habit.”

“I’ll leave after going to lunch with Martin. I’m just going to rest for a little.” 

Gertrude’s eyes narrowed on Jon. “Good. It would do you some good to not push your body. Now, Jonathan aside, Martin if you would see me in my office?”

Martin’s expression dropped before she continued. “Don’t make that face. I was going to talk to you out here, but if he overhears, keeping him out of work will be impossible.” Gertrude glanced to Jon.

“Oh, yeah. Got it.” Martin followed her to her office without another word.

Jon was terribly predictable to the point where they both knew he would sink his teeth into whatever work Jon was exposed to. 

Jon was also insufferably curious. 

So he closed his eyes, just to See, a small peak. 

Jon was surprised at how easy it was to control when he had a goal. He found himself looking through the eyes of Martin, as there wasn’t anything else in Gertrude’s office, including Gertrude herself but as to why slipped through his thoughts before any reason could get footing. 

His first observation wasn’t to tune into what was being said, but how this was the way Martin saw the world. Martin wasn’t looking directly at Gertrude as she spoke, but wondered around at the items placed around her desk. The viewpoint was much different as well. The size of the world was different. 

“- The Stranger isn’t something you can notice easily. They are subtle so I need you to make sure.”

“I’m positive. There was nothing wrong with the woman we visited on Friday. Sure the shop was creepy, with all the animal heads, but Gerry confirmed it too. It was just a shop for niche collectors.”

“I’ll need you to check out a few others then. Bring Gerard with you, but don’t let Jon follow along. If you do find the one run by Strangers, then Jon will most likely irritate them. His curious nature would offend them instantly if his attitude didn’t do it first.” 

Martin’s eyes shot from Gertrude’s desk to meet her eyes directly. “Being curious isn’t a flaw and-” Jon wished he could see the look on Martin’s face to match the hostility that rose in his voice. 

“It is in our line of work, and certainly is when dealing with creatures who make it their life mission to not be known. It’s best if it’s just you and Gerard. Just you would be better, but you need more experience that I’m afraid our timeline doesn’t allow.” 

Martin looks away. “Yeah. Right. I’ll be leaving for lunch early then and taking a look after.” 

“Thank you.” Jon couldn’t see the expression on her face since Martin was walking away at that point, but it sounded soft?

Jon saw himself as soon as Martin left the room and jolted back into his own eyes. Did Martin always look at Jon like that?

“I’m doing lunch early, would you want to swing by the market and make it at your place? Most lunch places aren’t open yet.”

A glow in Jon’s eyes faded as he looked to Martin. Jon wanted to ask Martin for more details, confess he was eavesdropping, offer to join even though Gertrude made a good point about why Jon shouldn’t. He wasn’t even sure if Gertrude was aware of Jon’s changes. But instead, he nodded. “S-Sounds good. You have anything in mind?” 

“Not really. We could check out some youtube videos for inspiration.” 

\-----

Once making it to Jon’s flat, Gerry was still sprawled out on the couch. Jon smiled remembering he would have to thank Gerry for staying up with him the night before, trying not to focus on the last dream Jon had and probably would ever have was about the fellow with the cursed blacklight. Thinking about it, Jon realized it is probably still in his desk? He was pretty sure he’d forgotten to take it to Artifact Storage. 

“Jon, were you listening?”

“Huh, oh sorry Martin, my mind was wandering a bit. Could you-”

“No worries. You had that look. I was wondering if you could start warming up the pan while I chop up some things.”

“Course.” Jon started dodging Marting around in the kitchen to get the pan and oil going on the stove. After watching some recipes while on the tube, they decided to try some sort of veggie meat pastry that could be made not too unlink a crepe. It had looked easy enough, and Jon said he could Know the complicated parts. So Martin figured it would be a healthy alternative to what the three of them had been in the habit of eating and made sure to get some extra ingredients from the store. 

About twenty minutes later Gerry entered the kitchen space with a foul look on his face at the dubious mess before him. “What were you two trying to accomplish?” 

Jon and Martin looked back with wide eyes of guilt. “Well, Turns out Jon Knowing something and being able to skillfully accomplish it are two very different things.” 

“Beholding aside, I would still be confident I could’ve pulled this off.” Jon grumped trying to own up to his own overconfidence that was only egged on from the eye about 10 minutes prior. 

Gerry could only laugh seeing the two of them around the mess of food they made.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> \--  
> Beholding: You can do it, look, you even Know all the tricks and the exact measurements needed and the angle needed to get perfect results!  
> Jon: Oh, another perk, I’ll never be bad at anything again.  
> Jon and Beholding moments later: ...Oh no 👁️👁️ 👁 👁 
> 
> \---
> 
> HOLY SHIT so I just learned Robert Smirke is a real human...I don’t know what to with that information but I find it hilarious. 
> 
> Also after giving the earlier episodes a listen I forgot it was Georgie who dubbed the ‘Avatars’ that while talking with Jon. The terms before were just ‘servants’ ‘creatures’ and ‘monsters’ etc. So cause it would bug me, I went through and edited out all the times Avatar was used, and turned them to ‘Servants’ or something that would fit. (there were only like 7 times I used it, but thats enough to bother me xDD) 
> 
> Jon is finally aware Elias is kinda a butt! No more them having civil convos (those were hard to write xDD)
> 
> With that last bit making lunch, as I’ve mentioned in past notes, I hc Jon as a competent cook, and sometimes that lends to beautiful blunders when trying new things. This was one of those moments. 
> 
> I picture Martin can’t cook. Food prep he is probably fine at, but when it comes to cooking, I can see him always either burning things or the food is too soggy, or the flavor is off. However it is messed up is very inconsistent, but it will be enough to always be dubious so he sticks to frozen dinners and sandwiches. 
> 
> There is a potential that Martin might cause Jon to be cursed in the kitchen because he can be distracting.

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks for reading! (comments fuel me, and I enjoy any feedback~)
> 
> Feel free to bother me on Tumblr or Twitter. My username is VentisetteStars on both.


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